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HTML Forms Interface

The following tags implement the forms interface:

• <form> . . . </form>
• <input>
• <select> . . . </select>
• <option>
• <textarea> . . . </textarea>

Define a form

Define a form within an HTML document. A document may contain multiple <form> elements, but <form> elements may not be nested. Note that non-form tags can be used within a <form> element. Attributes and their arguments:

action="URL":

The location of the program that will process the form.

method=data_exchange method

The method chosen to exchange data between the client and the program started to process the form: One of get or post. post is preferred for most applications.

Example:

<form action="http://kuhttp.cc.ukans.edu/cgi-bin/register" method=post> . . . </form>

Define an input field

<input> (there is no ending tag)

Defines an input field where the user may enter information on the form. Each input field assigns a value to a variable which has a specified name and a specified data type. Attributes and their arguments:

type="variable_type"

Specifies the data type for the variable, where:

• type="text" and type="password" fields accept character data
• type="checkbox" fields are either selected or not
• type="radio" fields of the same name allow selection of only one of the associated values
• type="submit" defines an action button that sends the completed form to the query server
• type="reset" defines a button that resets the form variables to their default values
• type="hidden" defines an invisible input field whose value will be sent along with the other form values when the form is submitted. This is used to pass state information from one script or form to another.

name="textstring"

where textstring is a symbolic name (not displayed) identifying the input variable as in:
<input type="checkbox" name="box1">

value="textstring"

where the meaning of textstring depends on the argument for type.

• For type="text" or type="password", textstring is the default value for the input variable. Password values will not be shown on the user's form. Anything entered by the user will replace any default value defined with this attribute.
• If type="checkbox" or type="radio", textstring is the value that will be sent to the server if the checkbox is "checked".
• For type="reset" or type="submit", textstring is a label that will appear on the submit or reset button in place of the words "submit" and "reset".

checked

No arguments. For type="checkbox" or type="radio", if checked is present the input field is "checked" by default.

size="display_width"

where display_width is an integer value representing the number of characters displayed for the type="text" or type="password" input field.

maxlength="string_length"

where string_length is the maximum number of characters allowed within type="text" or type="password" variable values. This attribute is only valid for single line "text" or "password" fields.

Define a select field

defines and displays a set of optional list items from which the user can select one or more items. This element requires an <option> element for each item in the list. Attributes and their arguments:

name="textstring"

where textstring is the symbolic identifier for the select field variable.

size="list_length"

where list_length is an integer value representing the number of <option> items that will be displayed at one time.

multiple

No arguments. If present, the multiple attribute allows selection of more than one <option> value.

Define a select field option

Within the <select> element the <option> tags are used to define the possible values for the select field. If the attribute selected is present then the option value is selected by default. In the following example all three options may be chosen but bananas are selected by default.

<select multiple>
<option>Apples
<option selected>Bananas
<option>Cherries
</select>

Define a text area

Defines a rectangular field where the user may enter text data. If "default text" is present it will be displayed when the field appears. Otherwise the field will be blank. Attributes and their values:

name="textstring"

textstring is a symbolic name that identifies the <textarea> variable.

rows="num_rows" and cols="numcols"

Both attributes take an integer value which represents the lines and number of characters per line in the <textarea> to be displayed.