How does an HTML Form work? (2024)

FAQs

How does a form work in HTML? ›

The form is enclosed in an HTML table for visual layout. Forms are enclosed in the HTML <form> element. This HTML element specifies the communication endpoint the data entered into the form should be submitted to, and the method of submitting the data, GET or POST .

The formaction attribute forces a form to direct to the specified URL instead of the URL specified as the value of the action attribute in the <form> element. Valid for submitting elements, including <input type=submit> and <input type=image> and <button> .

HTML Form Structure

The user fills out the input fields with the required information and upon clicking the submit button the data is sent to a form handler. Typically, the form handler is a file on the server with a script for processing input data.

When a user submits an HTML form, for example by clicking the submit button, the browser makes an HTTP request to send the data in the form. But instead of this declarative approach, web apps sometimes use JavaScript APIs such as fetch() to send data programmatically to an endpoint that expects a form submission.

Most HTML forms have a submit button at the bottom of the form. Once all of the fields in the form have been filled in, the user clicks on the submit button to record the form data. The standard behaviour is to gather all of the data that were entered into the form and send it to another program to be processed.

How does HTML work? Quite simply, HTML works by telling the internet browser how to display the page. First, the author uses a basic text editor on the computer (such as TextEdit for Mac) to create their HTML document. The author then fills their HTML document with a series of HTML elements, using HTML tags.

The most common input element in HTML forms is the <input> tag, which can create different types of input fields depending on the value of the type attribute. For example, type="text" creates a text box, type="checkbox" creates a checkbox, type="radio" creates a radio button, and type="submit" creates a submit button.

Usually, the form data is sent to a file on the server when the user clicks on the submit button.

<input type="submit"> buttons are used to submit forms. If you want to create a custom button and then customize the behavior using JavaScript, you need to use <input type="button"> , or better still, a <button> element.

How do I open an HTML form? ›

Forms allow users to enter data, which is generally sent to a web server for processing and storage (see Sending form data later in the module), or used on the client-side to immediately update the interface in some way (for example, add another item to a list, or show or hide a UI feature).

Definition and Usage

The method attribute specifies how to send form-data (the form-data is sent to the page specified in the action attribute). The form-data can be sent as URL variables (with method="get" ) or as HTTP post transaction (with method="post" ).

A web form (or HTML form) is a place where users enter data or personal information that's then sent to a server for processing. For example, users can share their name and email address to sign up for a newsletter or place an order.