FORM fill-out or data-entry form XHTML 1.0 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 as per RFC2045; list of MIME types for file upload
accept-charset	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a space-separated list of character encodings as per RFC2045; list of supported charsets
action	CDATA	#REQUIRED	Uniform Resource Identifier as per 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 for weak/neutral text
enctype	CDATA	"application/x-www-form-urlencoded"	media type as per RFC2045
id	ID	#IMPLIED	document-wide unique id
lang	NMTOKEN	#IMPLIED	language code (backwards compatible); language code as RFC3066
method	( get \| post )	"get"	HTTP method used to submit the form
name	NMTOKEN	#IMPLIED	name of form for scripting
onclick	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a pointer button was clicked; script expression
ondblclick	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a pointer button was double clicked; script expression
onkeydown	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a key was pressed down; script expression
onkeypress	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a key was pressed and released; script expression
onkeyup	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a key was released; script expression
onmousedown	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a pointer button was pressed down; script expression
onmousemove	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a pointer was moved within; script expression
onmouseout	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a pointer was moved away; script expression
onmouseover	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a pointer was moved onto; script expression
onmouseup	CDATA	#IMPLIED	a pointer button was released; script expression
onreset	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; the form was reset
onsubmit	CDATA	#IMPLIED	script expression; the form was submitted
style	CDATA	#IMPLIED	associated style info; style sheet data
target	NMTOKEN	#IMPLIED	render in this frame
title	CDATA	#IMPLIED	advisory title; text used for titles
xml:lang	NMTOKEN	#IMPLIED	language code (as per XML 1.0 spec); language code as RFC3066

Content

( #PCDATA | p | h1 | h2 | h3 | h4 | h5 | h6 | div | ul | ol | dl | menu | dir | pre | hr | blockquote | address | center | noframes | isindex | fieldset | table | a | br | span | bdo | object | applet | img | map | iframe | tt | i | b | u | s | strike | big | small | font | basefont | em | strong | dfn | code | q | samp | kbd | var | cite | abbr | acronym | sub | sup | input | select | textarea | label | button | noscript | ins | del | script )*

End tag

Required </form>

Referenced in

applet blockquote body center dd del div fieldset iframe ins li map noframes 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>
<p>Your Name: <input type="text" size="15" name="user-name" /></p>
<p>Customer Number: <input type="text" size="10" name="customer-number" /></p>
<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>
<p>What would you like?</p>
<p><select name="would-like" size="2" multiple="multiple">
<option>Order the product</option>
<option>Ask a question</option>
<option>Request a catalog</option></select></p>
<p>Your comments?<br />

<textarea name="comments" rows="4" cols="20">
</textarea></p>
<p><input type="submit" value="Send" /> <input type="reset"
value="Cancel" /></p></form>