FORM fill-out or data-entry form 4.01 Transitional

FORM

Purpose

interactive form

Description

This element is used to create a form to collect data from users. The data is collected through elements contained in the form. Once the user indicates that they are done with the form by clicking on a button, the data is sent to a Web server for processing by a common gateway interface (CGI) program. The results of this processing are then displayed to the user.

Creating forms for your Web site requires that you can prepare a common gateway interface (CGI) program to handle the form's processing and that you have permission from your system administrator to place this program in the a special directory, typically called cgi-bin, on your server, to hold CGI scripts.

Start tag

Required <FORM>

Attributes

Name	Type	Default	Comment
accept	CDATA	#IMPLIED	comma-separated list of media types; list of MIME types for file upload
accept-charset	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a space-separated list of character encodings; list of supported charsets
action	CDATA	#REQUIRED	Uniform Resource Identifier as p er RFC2396; a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a URI; server-side form handler
class	CDATA	#IMPLIED	space-separated list of classes
dir	( ltr \| rtl )	#IMPLIED	direction f or weak/neutral text
enctype	CDATA	"application/x-www-form-urlencoded"	media type
id	ID	#IMPLIED	document-wide unique id
lang	NAME	# IMPLIED	language code as RFC1766
method	( GET \| POST )< td class="guide">GET	HTTP method used to submit the form
name	CDATA	#IMPLIED	name of form for scripting
onclick	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; a pointer button was cl icked
ondblclick	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; a pointer button was double clicked
onkeydown	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; a key was pressed down
onkeypress< td class="guide"> CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; a key was pressed and released
onkeyup	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; a key was released
onmousedown	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; a pointer button was pressed down
onmousemove	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; a pointer was moved within
onmouseout	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; a pointer was moved away
onmouseover	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; a pointer was moved onto
onmouseup	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; a pointer button was released
onreset	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; the form was reset
onsubmit	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; the form was submitted
style	CDATA	#IMPLIED	style sheet data; associated style info
target	CDATA	#IMPLIED	render in this frame
title	CDATA	#IMPLIED	text; advisory title

Content

( P | H1 | H2 | H3 | H4 | H5 | H6 | UL | OL | DIR | MENU | PRE | DL | DIV | CENTER | NOSCRIPT | BLOCKQUOTE | FORM | ISINDEX | HR | TABLE | FIELDSET | ADDRESS | #PCDATA | TT | I | B | U | S | STRIKE | BIG | SMALL | EM | STRONG | DFN | CODE | SAMP | KBD | VAR | CITE | ABBR | ACRONYM | A | IMG | APPLET | OBJECT | FONT | BASEFONT | BR | SCRIPT | MAP | Q | SUB | SUP | SPAN | BDO | INPUT | SELECT | TEXTAREA | LABEL | BUTTON )* -( FORM )

End tag

Required </FORM>

Referenced in

APPLET BLOCKQUOTE BODY BUTTON CENTER DD DEL DIR DIV FIELDSET FORM INS LI MAP MENU NOSCRIPT OBJECT TD TH

Example

Source

Appearance

<FORM Method="POST"
Action= "http://www.december.com/cgi-bin/formmail.secure.cgi">
<P><INPUT Type="hidden" Name="recipient" Value="nobody@december.com">
<p>Your Name: <INPUT Type="text" size="15" Name="user-name">
<P>Customer Number: <INPUT Type="text" size="10" Name= "customer-number">
<P>Shirt Size?
<INPUT Type="radio" Name="shirt-size" Value="S">S
<INPUT Type="radio" Name="shirt-size" Value="M">M
<INPUT Type="radio" Name="shirt-size" Value="L">L
<INPUT Type="radio" Name="shirt-size" Value="XL">XL
<P>What would you like?
<P><SELECT Name="would-like" size="2" multiple>
<OPTION>Order the product</OPTION>
<OPTION>Ask a question</OPTION>
<OPTION>Request a catalog</OPTION>
</SELECT>
<P>Your comments?<BR>
<TEXTAREA Name="comments" rows="4" cols="20"></TEXTAREA>
<P><INPUT Type="submit" Value="Send">
<INPUT Type="reset" Value="Cancel">
</FORM>