Designing a form - Practical PHP Programming

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A "form" on the web is considered to be zero or more form elements, plus a submit button. These forms are designed to electronically replicate the forms we've all filled in hundreds of times before in real life - signing up for a bank account, a passport, etc. You start your form using the <FORM> HTML tag, and therefore you end with </FORM>. By separating forms like this, you can have multiple forms on one page.

Given the above definition, here is the most basic form in HTML:

<FORM>

  <INPUT TYPE="submit" />

  </FORM>

What does it do? Well, very little, really - it will simply show a button with "Submit Query" written on, which will not submit any data when clicked. The screenshot below is how it looks in Konqueror running on Linux:

There are two key attributes to the <FORM> tag that you should be aware of and use: action, and method. Action sets the location of the page that will handle the results of the form - the place where the variables should be sent. Method describes how the data should be submitted, and you have two options: GET and POST.

d@aerno.com - 20 Aug 2008

Technically though, you don't need a submit button to cause an action.

Suck My Willy - 20 Aug 2008

I need pre written scripts in dumb

rolo@irolo.net - 20 Aug 2008

"Since HTML 4 you can use the button tag for buttons."

Although this is true, the SUBMIT TYPE is a special kind of BUTTON that hides the work of processing a FORM. If you are using PHP and you have set the ACTION of the FORM to a PHP page, like so:

<FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="sendmail.php">
<INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT">
</FORM>

Then any values in the form will be sent to sendmail.php, without having to write any more code. There is also a RESET TYPE with built-in functionality.

Shadow - 20 Aug 2008

The code:
<FORM>
<INPUT TYPE="submit" />
</FORM>
Could be used as:
<form>
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
</form>

dho - 20 Aug 2008

Since HTML 4 you can use the button tag for buttons.

A PHP User - 20 Aug 2008

jimn

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7.3 Designing a form

This is NOT the latest copy of this book; click here for the latest version.