Is it possible to nest html forms like this
<form name="mainForm">
<form name="subForm">
</form>
</form>
so that both forms work? My friend is having problems with this, a part of the subForm works, while another part of it does not.
In a word, no. You can have several forms in a page but they should not be nested.
From the html5 working draft:
4.10.3 The form element
Content model:
Flow content, but with no form element descendants.
The HTML5 <input> form attribute can be the solution.
From http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_input_form.asp:
The form attribute is new in HTML5.
Specifies which <form> element an <input> element belongs to. The value of this attribute must be the id attribute of a <form> element in the same document.
Scenario:
input_Form1_n1
input_Form2_n1
input_Form1_n2
input_Form2_n2
Implementation:
<form id="Form1" action="Action1.php" method="post"></form>
<form id="Form2" action="Action2.php" method="post"></form>
<input type="text" name="input_Form1_n1" form="Form1" />
<input type="text" name="input_Form2_n1" form="Form2" />
<input type="text" name="input_Form1_n2" form="Form1" />
<input type="text" name="input_Form2_n2" form="Form2" />
<input type="submit" name="button1" value="buttonVal1" form="Form1" />
<input type="submit" name="button2" value="buttonVal2" form="Form2" />
Here you'll find browser's compatibility.
It is possible to achieve the same result as nested forms, but without nesting them.
HTML5 introduced the form attribute. You can add the form attribute to form controls outside of a form to link them to a specific form element (by id).
https://www.impressivewebs.com/html5-form-attribute/
This way you can structure your html like this:
<form id="main-form" action="/main-action" method="post"></form>
<form id="sub-form" action="/sub-action" method="post"></form>
<div class="main-component">
<input type="text" name="main-property1" form="main-form" />
<input type="text" name="main-property2" form="main-form" />
<div class="sub-component">
<input type="text" name="sub-property1" form="sub-form" />
<input type="text" name="sub-property2" form="sub-form" />
<input type="submit" name="sub-save" value="Save" form="sub-form" />
</div>
<input type="submit" name="main-save" value="Save" form="main-form" />
</div>
The form attribute is supported by all modern browsers. IE does not support this though but IE is not a browser anymore, rather a compatibility tool, as confirmed by Microsoft itself: https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-security-chief-ie-is-not-a-browser-so-stop-using-it-as-your-default/. It's about time we stop caring about making things work in IE.
https://caniuse.com/#feat=form-attribute
https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/form-control-infrastructure.html#attr-fae-form
From the html spec:
This feature allows authors to work around the lack of support for
nested form elements.
The second form will be ignored, see the snippet from WebKit for example:
bool HTMLParser::formCreateErrorCheck(Token* t, RefPtr<Node>& result)
{
// Only create a new form if we're not already inside one.
// This is consistent with other browsers' behavior.
if (!m_currentFormElement) {
m_currentFormElement = new HTMLFormElement(formTag, m_document);
result = m_currentFormElement;
pCloserCreateErrorCheck(t, result);
}
return false;
}
Plain html cannot allow you to do this. But with javascript you can be able to do that.
If you are using javascript/jquery you could classify your form elements with a class and then use serialize() to serialize only those form elements for the subset of the items you want to submit.
<form id="formid">
<input type="text" class="class1" />
<input type="text" class="class2">
</form>
Then in your javascript you could do this to serialize class1 elements
$(".class1").serialize();
For class2 you could do
$(".class2").serialize();
For the whole form
$("#formid").serialize();
or simply
$("#formid").submit();
If you're using AngularJS, any <form> tags inside your ng-app are replaced at runtime with ngForm directives that are designed to be nested.
In Angular forms can be nested. This means that the outer form is valid when all of the child forms are valid as well. However, browsers do not allow nesting of <form> elements, so Angular provides the ngForm directive which behaves identically to <form> but can be nested. This allows you to have nested forms, which is very useful when using Angular validation directives in forms that are dynamically generated using the ngRepeat directive. (source)
Another way to get around this problem, if you are using some server side scripting language that allows you to manipulate the posted data, is to declare your html form like this :
<form>
<input name="a_name"/>
<input name="a_second_name"/>
<input name="subform[another_name]"/>
<input name="subform[another_second_name]"/>
</form>
If you print the posted data (I will use PHP here), you will get an array like this :
//print_r($_POST) will output :
array(
'a_name' => 'a_name_value',
'a_second_name' => 'a_second_name_value',
'subform' => array(
'another_name' => 'a_name_value',
'another_second_name' => 'another_second_name_value',
),
);
Then you can just do something like :
$my_sub_form_data = $_POST['subform'];
unset($_POST['subform']);
Your $_POST now has only your "main form" data, and your subform data is stored in another variable you can manipulate at will.
Hope this helps!
As Craig said, no.
But, regarding your comment as to why:
It might be easier to use 1 <form> with the inputs and the "Update" button, and use copy hidden inputs with the "Submit Order" button in a another <form>.
Note you are not allowed to nest FORM elements!
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/forms.html
https://www.w3.org/TR/html4/appendix/changes.html#h-A.3.9 (html4 specification notes no changes regarding nesting forms from 3.2 to 4)
https://www.w3.org/TR/html4/appendix/changes.html#h-A.1.1.12 (html4 specification notes no changes regarding nesting forms from 4.0 to 4.1)
https://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/ (html5 specification notes no changes regarding nesting forms from 4 to 5)
https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/forms.html#association-of-controls-and-forms comments to "This feature allows authors to work around the lack of support for nested form elements.", but does not cite where this is specified, I think they are assuming that we should assume that it's specified in the html3 specification :)
You can also use formaction="" inside the button tag.
<button type="submit" formaction="/rmDog" method='post' id="rmDog">-</button>
This would be nested in the original form as a separate button.
A simple workaround is to use a iframe to hold the "nested" form.
Visually the form is nested but on the code side its in a separate html file altogether.
Even if you could get it to work in one browser, there's no guarantee that it would work the same in all browsers. So while you might be able to get it to work some of the time, you certainly wouldn't be able to get it to work all of the time.
While I don't present a solution to nested forms (it doesn't work reliably), I do present a workaround that works for me:
Usage scenario: A superform allowing to change N items at once. It has a "Submit All" button at the bottom. Each item wants to have its own nested form with a "Submit Item # N" button. But can't...
In this case, one can actually use a single form, and then have the name of the buttons be submit_1..submit_N and submitAll and handle it servers-side, by only looking at params ending in _1 if the name of the button was submit_1.
<form>
<div id="item1">
<input type="text" name="foo_1" value="23">
<input type="submit" name="submit_1" value="Submit Item #1">
</div>
<div id="item2">
<input type="text" name="foo_2" value="33">
<input type="submit" name="submit_2" value="Submit Item #2">
</div>
<input type="submit" name="submitAll" value="Submit All Items">
</form>
Ok, so not much of an invention, but it does the job.
Use empty form tag before your nested form
Tested and Worked on Firefox, Chrome
Not Tested on I.E.
<form name="mainForm" action="mainAction">
<form></form>
<form name="subForm" action="subAction">
</form>
</form>
EDIT by #adusza: As the commenters pointed out, the above code does not result in nested forms. However, if you add div elements like below, you will have subForm inside mainForm, and the first blank form will be removed.
<form name="mainForm" action="mainAction">
<div>
<form></form>
<form name="subForm" action="subAction">
</form>
</div>
</form>
Although the question is pretty old and I agree with the #everyone that nesting of form is not allowed in HTML
But this something all might want to see this
where you can hack(I'm calling it a hack since I'm sure this ain't legitimate) html to allow browser to have nested form
<form id="form_one" action="http://apple.com">
<div>
<div>
<form id="form_two" action="/">
<!-- DUMMY FORM TO ALLOW BROWSER TO ACCEPT NESTED FORM -->
</form>
</div>
<br/>
<div>
<form id="form_three" action="http://www.linuxtopia.org/">
<input type='submit' value='LINUX TOPIA'/>
</form>
</div>
<br/>
<div>
<form id="form_four" action="http://bing.com">
<input type='submit' value='BING'/>
</form>
</div>
<br/>
<input type='submit' value='Apple'/>
</div>
</form>
JS FIDDLE LINK
http://jsfiddle.net/nzkEw/10/
About nesting forms: I spent 10 years one afternoon trying to debug an ajax script.
my previous answer/example didn't account for the html markup, sorry.
<form id='form_1' et al>
<input stuff>
<submit onClick='ajaxFunction(That_Puts_form_2_In_The_ajaxContainer)'>
<td id='ajaxContainer'></td>
</form>
form_2 constantly failed saying invalid form_2.
When I moved the ajaxContainer that produced form_2 <i>outside</i> of form_1, I was back in business. It the answer the question as to why one might nest forms. I mean, really, what's the ID for if not to define which form is to be used? There must be a better, slicker work around.
No you cannot have a nested form. Instead you can open up a Modal that contains form and perform Ajax form submit.
Really not possible...
I couldn't nest form tags...
However I used this code:
<form>
OTHER FORM STUFF
<div novalidate role="form" method="post" id="fake_form_id_0" data-url="YOUR_POST_URL">
THIS FORM STUFF
</div>
</form>
with {% csrf_token %} and stuff
and applied some JS
var url = $(form_id).attr("data-url");
$.ajax({
url: url,
"type": "POST",
"data": {
'csrfmiddlewaretoken': '{{ csrf_token }}',
'custom-param-attachment': 'value'
},
success: function (e, data) {
if (e.is_valid) {
DO STUFF
}
}
});
Today, I also got stuck in same issue, and resolve the issue I have added a user control and
on this control I use this code
<div class="divformTagEx">
</div>
<asp:Literal runat="server" ID="litFormTag" Visible="false">
'<div> <form style="margin-bottom: 3;" action="http://login.php" method="post" name="testformtag"></form> </div>'</asp:Literal>
and on PreRenderComplete event of the page call this method
private void InitializeJavaScript()
{
var script = new StringBuilder();
script.Append("$(document).ready(function () {");
script.Append("$('.divformTagEx').append( ");
script.Append(litFormTag.Text);
script.Append(" )");
script.Append(" });");
ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(this, GetType(), "nestedFormTagEx", script.ToString(), true);
}
I believe this will help.
Before I knew I wasn't supposed to do this I had nested forms for the purpose of having multiple submit buttons. Ran that way for 18 months, thousands of signup transactions, no one called us about any difficulties.
Nested forms gave me an ID to parse for the correct action to take. Didn't break 'til I tried to attach a field to one of the buttons and Validate complained. Wasn't a big deal to untangle it--I used an explicit stringify on the outer form so it didn't matter the submit and form didn't match. Yeah, yeah, should've taken the buttons from a submit to an onclick.
Point is there are circumstances where it's not entirely broken. But "not entirely broken" is perhaps too low a standard to shoot for :-)
[see thecode.. code format below ]2simple trick
simply dont use other inside another form tag, please use the same elements without using form tag.
see example below
"" dont use another form // just recall the enter image description hereelement in it""
I did a seemingly correct layout of form, but submit does not happen whet I hit enter after entering password. I need to click the button to do submit. I base my approach on http://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng/directive/ngSubmit with only exception that I use button, not input.
<form name="loginForm" id="loginForm" ng-submit="login(credentials)" novalidate="novalidate">
<input type="password" placeholder="password" id="password" name="password" ng-model="credentials.password" ng-maxlength="40" required="required" form-control="form-control" class="form-control ng-valid-maxlength ng-dirty ng-valid ng-valid-required">
<button type="submit" id="loginButton" ng-disabled="!loginForm.$valid" class="btn btn-primary btn-lg">Login</button>
</form>
UPDATE The behaviour works in firefox but not in chrome.
ng-submit does not accept JavaScript, it accepts an angular expression.
As such, your code there won't work.
IF login is a function on the scope accessible by this markup, then the following will work:
<form name="loginForm" ng-submit="login(credentials)" novalidate>
If this isn't working, then check your developer console - are there any errors? It's very likely your function isn't on the scope that you think it's on. Provide your javascript in the question for a more accurate answer.
Comment and I will update if you still need help.
I had the same problem. check the element that contains your form. my form overflowed outside of it's containing DOM element and submit button was accidentally in the overflowed section (the height of the containing div was less than the height of the form). As I positioned it inside, it worked.
I still don't know what causes this problem in Chrome. maybe it is angular's behavior in Chrome.
EDIT :
you can also try fixing it by removing any given height from form's parent element.
how can I place an iFrame around this form? On submit my button directs to a success page and I need it all to stay in one screen, hence incorporating an iframe. How can I achieve this? I've never used them before and adding <iframe> </iframe> tags around the form just makes it disappear.
Here's my form:
<form action="#link">
<input type="text" name="name" required placeholder="Enter your name"/>
<input type="email" name="email" required placeholder="Enter a valid e-mail address"/>
<input type="text" name="comment" required placeholder="Enter your comment"/>
<input type="submit" value="submit" />
</form>
If you place the form code, including the code to redirect to your success page in a separate document - usually PHP, then add the iFrame of that document where you want it.
An iframe is a tag that allows you to include a page inside another page. So, you have to link to another file, and you cannot put other tags inside it, as you tried.
To achieve what you need, you have to create a file, lets call it your_other_file.php, where you have the code of the form, and the code of the sucess page.
in your main page, you put something like this
<iframe width="800" height="600" src="your_other_file.php"></iframe>
depending of your purpose, you could prefer to send the form by ajax and update de div. but if you have no much experience, this approach is good enough.
I have several sections in my page that I need to include under the same form tag, but doing so breaks the HTML. For example:
<div>
<form name="firstform">
<input type="text" name="input1" />
<input type="text" name="input2" />
<input type="text" name="input3" />
</div>
<p>bla bla</p>
<div>
<form name="secondform">
<input type="text" name="one" />
</form>
<input type="text" name="input4">
</form>
So basically I want to submit the form firstform but in a way that will include input4 but without submitting secondform?
EDIT:
I have a pretty long page with a lot of inputs, in the middle of the page I have a different form that is used to allow file upload which I want to keep where it is in the page, however, after that section I have a continuation of the first form. so I have the first form, then another form with the file upload and then the rest of the first form.
If you want to have multiple forms, use one form tag with multiple submit buttons. Give to the buttons name and value and its time a user submit the form, chech in the back end which button has been pushed.
You could simply add an html button with an onClick event that calls a function to mimic a nested form. If the second form's onSubmit function is pure javaScript this could be a quick cut/paste. If your second form is communicating with a server you'll have to jump into some AJAX.
I have an HTML form with two submit inputs. One of them resets the application form, and the other one proceeds to the next levels:
<form method="POST" action="#">
<input type="text" name="username" value="" required aria-required="true">
<input type="submit" name="info" value="Next Step">
<input type="submit" name="info" value="Reset">
</form>
Now i have used the "required" tag that doesn't allow users proceed unless they have filled in the username filed.
Is there any way I can exclude the reset button because the reset button should't need any verification.
One solution I can think of is to put the reset button outside of the form, but I would have some problems with aligning the buttons, because I want both buttons to be in one row and if one of them is inside a DIV tag inside of a form, and with the other one outside of the form, they will never get aligned in one row (I have tried a lot, it doesn't work!).
I wonder if there are any other ways or workarounds to handle this...
Use a <button type="reset">, it won't validate.
use <input type="reset" name="info" value="Reset">
This will not submit the form. and you can do validation on the input type="submit"
Use the formnovalidate attribute:
<input type="submit" name="info" value="Reset" formnovalidate>
Browser support is limited, but probably roughly as limited as for the required attribute.
Note: The value (button text) “Reset” may be misleading, as it suggests that the button is a so-called reset button, which permanently destroys any data entered in the form but does not cause any server interaction. Such buttons (which should almost never be used, but are commonly used) are typically labeled with “Reset”.
It appears to me that both your buttons are included under submit type, which will anyway do a submission on your form. So, you can simply use reset button type as
<input type="reset" name="info" value="Reset">