Javascript submit any form

JavaScript Form

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn about JavaScript form API: accessing the form, getting values of the elements, validating form data, and submitting the form.

Form basics

To create a form in HTML, you use the element:

form action="/signup" method="post" id="signup"> form>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

The element has two important attributes: action and method .

• The action attribute specifies a URL that will process the form submission. In this example, the action is the /signup URL.
• The method attribute specifies the HTTP method to submit the form with. Usually, the method is either post or get .

Generally, you use the get method when you want to retrieve data from the server and the post method when you want to change data on the server.

JavaScript uses the HTMLFormElement object to represent a form. The HTMLFormElement has the following properties that correspond to the HTML attributes:

• action – is the URL that processes the form data. It is equivalent to the action attribute of the element.
• method – is the HTTP method which is equivalent to the method attribute of the element.

The HTMLFormElement element also provides the following useful methods:

Referencing forms

To reference the element, you can use DOM selecting methods such as getElementById() :

const form = document.getElementById('subscribe');Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

An HTML document can have multiple forms. The document.forms property returns a collection of forms ( HTMLFormControlsCollection ) on the document:

document.formsCode language: JavaScript (javascript)

To reference a form, you use an index. For example, the following statement returns the first form of the HTML document:

document.forms[0]Code language: CSS (css)

Submitting a form

Typically, a form has a submit button. When you click it, the browser sends the form data to the server. To create a submit button, you use or element with the type submit :

input type="submit" value="Subscribe">Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

button type="submit">Subscribe button>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

If the submit button has focus and you press the Enter key, the browser also submits the form data.

When you submit the form, the submit event is fired before the request is sent to the server. This gives you a chance to validate the form data. If the form data is invalid, you can stop submitting the form.

To attach an event listener to the submit event, you use the addEventListener() method of the form element as follows:

const form = document.getElementById('signup'); form.addEventListener('submit', (event) => < // handle the form data >);Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

To stop the form from being submitted, you call the preventDefault() method of the event object inside the submit event handler like this:

form.addEventListener('submit', (event) => < // stop form submission event.preventDefault(); >);Code language: PHP (php)

Typically, you call the event.preventDefault() method if the form data is invalid. To submit the form in JavaScript, you call the submit() method of the form object:

form.submit();Code language: CSS (css)

Note that the form.submit() does not fire the submit event. Therefore, you should always validate the form before calling this method.

Accessing form fields

To access form fields, you can use DOM methods like getElementsByName() , getElementById() , querySelector() , etc.

Also, you can use the elements property of the form object. The form.elements property stores a collection of the form elements.

JavaScript allows you to access an element by index, id, or name. Suppose that you have the following signup form with two elements:

form action="signup.html" method="post" id="signup"> h1>Sign Up h1> div class="field"> label for="name">Name: label> input type="text" id="name" name="name" placeholder="Enter your fullname" /> small> small> div> div class="field"> label for="email">Email: label> input type="text" id="email" name="email" placeholder="Enter your email address" /> small> small> div> button type="submit">Subscribe button> form> Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

To access the elements of the form, you get the form element first:

const form = document.getElementById('signup');Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

And use index, id, or name to access the element. The following accesses the first form element:

form.elements[0]; // by index form.elements['name']; // by name form.elements['name']; // by id (name & id are the same in this case)Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

The following accesses the second input element:

form.elements[1]; // by index form.elements['email']; // by name form.elements['email']; // by idCode language: JavaScript (javascript)

After accessing a form field, you can use the value property to access its value, for example:

const form = document.getElementById('signup'); const name = form.elements['name']; const email = form.elements['email']; // getting the element's value let fullName = name.value; let emailAddress = email.value;Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Put it all together: signup form

The following illustrates the HTML document that has a signup form. See the live demo here.

html> html lang="en"> head> title>JavaScript Form Demo title> meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" /> link rel="stylesheet" href="css/style.css" /> head> body> div class="container"> form action="signup.html" method="post" id="signup"> h1>Sign Up h1> div class="field"> label for="name">Name: label> input type="text" id="name" name="name" placeholder="Enter your fullname" /> small> small> div> div class="field"> label for="email">Email: label> input type="text" id="email" name="email" placeholder="Enter your email address" /> small> small> div> div class="field"> button type="submit" class="full">Subscribe button> div> form> div> script src="js/app.js"> script> body> html> Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

The HTML document references the style.css and app.js files. It uses the element to display an error message in case the element has invalid data.

Submitting the form without providing any information will result in the following error:

Submitting the form with the name but invalid email address format will result in the following error:

The following shows the complete app.js file:

// show a message with a type of the input function showMessage(input, message, type) < // get the small element and set the message const msg = input.parentNode.querySelector("small"); msg.innerText = message; // update the class for the input input.className = type ? "success" : "error"; return type; > function showError(input, message) < return showMessage(input, message, false); > function showSuccess(input) < return showMessage(input, "", true); > function hasValue(input, message) < if (input.value.trim() === "") < return showError(input, message); > return showSuccess(input); > function validateEmail(input, requiredMsg, invalidMsg) < // check if the value is not empty if (!hasValue(input, requiredMsg)) < return false; > // validate email format const emailRegex = /^(([^<>()\[\]\\.,;:\s@"]+(\.[^<>()\[\]\\.,;:\s@"]+)*)|(".+"))@((\[6\.3\.4\.9\])|(([a-zA-Z\-0-9]+\.)+[a-zA-Z]))$/; const email = input.value.trim(); if (!emailRegex.test(email)) < return showError(input, invalidMsg); > return true; > const form = document.querySelector("#signup"); const NAME_REQUIRED = "Please enter your name"; const EMAIL_REQUIRED = "Please enter your email"; const EMAIL_INVALID = "Please enter a correct email address format"; form.addEventListener("submit", function (event) < // stop form submission event.preventDefault(); // validate the form let nameValid = hasValue(form.elements["name"], NAME_REQUIRED); let emailValid = validateEmail(form.elements["email"], EMAIL_REQUIRED, EMAIL_INVALID); // if valid, submit the form. if (nameValid && emailValid) < alert("Demo only. No form was posted."); > >); Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

The showMessage() function

The showMessage() function accepts an input element, a message, and a type:

// show a message with a type of the input function showMessage(input, message, type) < // get the element and set the message const msg = input.parentNode.querySelector("small"); msg.innerText = message; // update the class for the input input.className = type ? "success" : "error"; return type; >Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

div class="field"> label for="name">Name: label> input type="text" id="name" name="name" placeholder="Enter your fullname" /> small> small> div>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

input.parentNodeCode language: CSS (css)

const msg = input.parentNode.querySelector("small");Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

input.className = type ? "success" : "error";Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

return type;Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

function showError(input, message) < return showMessage(input, message, false); > function showSuccess(input) < return showMessage(input, "", true); >Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

function hasValue(input, message) < if (input.value.trim() === "") < return showError(input, message); > return showSuccess(input); >Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

function validateEmail(input, requiredMsg, invalidMsg) < // check if the value is not empty if (!hasValue(input, requiredMsg)) < return false; > // validate email format const emailRegex = /^(([^<>()\[\]\\.,;:\s@"]+(\.[^<>()\[\]\\.,;:\s@"]+)*)|(".+"))@((\[[0-9]1,3>\.[0-9]1,3>\.[0-9]1,3>\.[0-9]1,3>\])|(([a-zA-Z\-0-9]+\.)+[a-zA-Z]2,>))$/; const email = input.value.trim(); if (!emailRegex.test(email)) < return showError(input, invalidMsg); > return true; >Code language: PHP (php)

const form = document.querySelector("#signup");Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

const NAME_REQUIRED = "Please enter your name"; const EMAIL_REQUIRED = "Please enter your email"; const EMAIL_INVALID = "Please enter a correct email address format";Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

form.addEventListener("submit", function (event) < // stop form submission event.preventDefault(); // validate the form let nameValid = hasValue(form.elements["name"], NAME_REQUIRED); let emailValid = validateEmail(form.elements["email"], EMAIL_REQUIRED, EMAIL_INVALID); // if valid, submit the form. if (nameValid && emailValid) < alert("Demo only. No form was posted."); > >); Code language: JavaScript (javascript)