I'm trying to do a form and while the alert is popping up it is still submitting. How do I get it to stop submitting??
function validate() {
var first = document.register.first.value;
if (first == "") {
alert("please enter your name");
first.focus();
return false;
}
return (true);
}<body>
<form name="register" action="testform.php" onsubmit="return(validate());">
<input type="text" name="first" />
<button type="submit" />Submit
</form>
</body>You added the parenthesis on return() then return(validate()) which we use () when calling the function so it might be considering return a custom function which returns undefined and when returned the undefined it ignores and continue the execution.
How ever the validate is called but it's response is not returned to the form.
Fixed version:
<head>
<script>
function validate(e) {
var first = document.register.first.value;
console.log(document.register.first)
if( first == "" ) {
alert( "please enter your name" ) ;
return false;
}
return(true);
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form name="register" action="testform.php" onsubmit="return validate()">
<input type="text" name="first" />
<button type="submit" >sbmit</button>
</form>
</body>
You are better of using the required attribute on the front end of things. It will 'force' the user to input text into the input field before it is able to submit. Please note that I put quotation marks around the word 'force', because one can just edit the HTML and circumvent the HTML required attribute. Therefore make absolutely sure that you are validating user input on the PHP side as well.
Many tutorials and examples exist for PHP Form Validation, such as this one from W3Schools and this one from Medium.
<form name="register" action="testform.php">
<input type="text" name="first" required/>
<input type="submit" value="Submit"/>
</form>You have several bugs in your code.
<button> element is not self-closingfocus on value of the input instead of the input element which throws exceptionfunction validate() {
var input = document.register.first;
var text = input.value;
if( text == "" ) {
alert( "please enter your name" ) ;
input.focus();
return false;
}
return true;
}
I think the issue is with the button's type="submit". Try changing it to type="button", with an onclick function that submits your form if validate() returns true.
edit: Arjan makes a good point, and you should use required. But this answers why the form was submitting.
type="submit"specifies that the button will submit the form it's associated with. You need to override this default behavior to do the validation, and then tell it to submit.
required as its way easier. You will have to verify user input on the server side anyways.required. But he did ask why his form was submitting onclick before checking his validate() function. It's also good to know in case he ends up in a situation where the simple required validation isn't enough (e.g., field A is required if radio B is selected).