Simple question about submit

rubyonrails-talk
1

It's such a simple question ... and I can't find an answer.

When I put up a form and I have a submit button ... cleary when the user clicks on it a uri is generated. What is that uri?

In other words ... what method in which controller is generally called when the user hits to submit button?

2

Ralph Shnelvar wrote:

It's such a simple question ... and I can't find an answer.

Because it's a basic HTML question, not a Rails one.

When I put up a form and I have a submit button ... cleary when the user clicks on it a uri is generated. What is that uri?

Whatever the <form> tag's action is.

In other words ... what method in which controller is generally called when the user hits to submit button?

Whatever method your routes map that URL to.

3

Marnen Laibow-Koser wrote:

Whatever the <form> tag's action is.

Also, if no action is specified via the form tag, the form is submitted to the current url.

So if 'thing/edit/1' contained:

<form>   <input type="submit" /> </form>

The form would be submitted back to 'thing/edit/1'

4

Rob and Marnen:

Thank you!

I am now curious why the designers of HTML put the "place to go" on the form tag rather than on the <input type="submit" /> tag.

Ralph

5

Ralph Shnelvar wrote:

Rob and Marnen:

Thank you!

I am now curious why the designers of HTML put the "place to go" on the form tag rather than on the <input type="submit" /> tag.

My guess: the idea is that the action is a property of the *form*, not the submit button. But take this up on an HTML forum if you want better answers. We're out of Rails territory here.

6

Rob Nichols wrote:

Marnen Laibow-Koser wrote:

Whatever the <form> tag's action is.

Also, if no action is specified via the form tag, the form is submitted to the current url.

So if 'thing/edit/1' contained:

<form>   <input type="submit" /> </form>

The form would be submitted back to 'thing/edit/1'

No. <form> without an action is invalid HTML, so its behavior is undefined. An action must always be specified.

Best,

7

How do you know that the next version of FF will do that? Have you tested all available browsers? What about Chinese versions? If you develop a website that does not generate valid html then next week an update to IE may break the website and your clients/users will not be happy.

Colin

8

Yet you make the mistake yourself by saying "browsers will" instead of "browsers *may*".

What action the user agent performs if an 'action' parameter of a form is anything other than an http(s):// url is undefined... so they're free to do what they want. http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#h-17.3

If *you* want to be *sure* a form submits how you want, you *must* include an action parameter. If you don't care what your form does, then you *should* do whatever you prefer :slight_smile:

9

On this and other forums I sometimes get the suggestion "Try it".

I have made the comment in forums to the effect that "Just because it works does not mean that it is defined to work".

10

Ralph Shnelvar wrote:

On this and other forums I sometimes get the suggestion "Try it".

I have made the comment in forums to the effect that "Just because it works does not mean that it is defined to work".

That sounds like something I hear at work from time to time...

"It is not known not to work"...