I have a form. Outside that form, I have a button. A simple button, like this:
<button>My Button</button>
Nevertheless, when I click it, it submits the form. Here's the code:
<form id="myform">
<label>Label
<input />
</label>
</form>
<button>My Button</button>
All this button should do is some JavaScript. But even when it looks just like in the code above, it submits the form. When I change the tag button to span, it works perfectly. But unfortunately, it needs to be a button. Is there any way to block that button from submitting the form? Like e. g.
<button onclick="document.getElementById('myform').doNotSubmit();">My Button</button>
I think this is the most annoying little peculiarity of HTML... That button needs to be of type "button" in order to not submit.
<button type="button">My Button</button>
Update 5-Feb-2019: As per the HTML Living Standard (and also HTML 5 specification):
The missing value default and invalid value default are the Submit Button state.
return false;
at the end of the onclick handler will do the job. However, it's be better to simply add type="button"
to the <button>
- that way it behaves properly even without any JavaScript.
return false;
does not work in all scenarios, while type="Button"
does. Even with enabled JavaScript.
By default, html buttons submit a form.
This is due to the fact that even buttons located outside of a form act as submitters (see the W3Schools website: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_button_form.asp)
In other words, the button type is "submit" by default
<button type="submit">Button Text</button>
Therefore an easy way to get around this is to use the button type.
<button type="button">Button Text</button>
Other options include returning false at the end of the onclick or any other handler for when the button is clicked, or to using an < input> tag instead
To find out more, check out the Mozilla Developer Network's information on buttons: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/HTML/Element/button
Dave Markle is correct. From W3School's website:
Always specify the type attribute for the button. The default type for Internet Explorer is "button", while in other browsers (and in the W3C specification) it is "submit".
In other words, the browser you're using is following W3C's specification.
Another option that worked for me was to add onsubmit="return false;" to the form tag.
<form onsubmit="return false;">
Semantically probably not as good a solution as the above methods of changing the button type, but seems to be an option if you just want a form element that won't submit.
It's recommended not to use the <Button>
tag. Use the <Input type='Button' onclick='return false;'>
tag instead. (Using the "return false" should indeed not send the form.)
Some reference material
<input type="button" />
, and it's enough to return false;
- there's no need to do both.
For accessibility reason, I could not pull it off with multiple type=submit
buttons. The only way to work natively with a form
with multiple buttons but ONLY one can submit the form when hitting the Enter
key is to ensure that only one of them is of type=submit
while others are in other type such as type=button
. By this way, you can benefit from the better user experience in dealing with a form on a browser in terms of keyboard support.
Late in the game, but you don't need ANY JavaScript code to use a button as a button. The default behavior is to submit the form, most people don't realize that. The type parameter has three options: submit (default), button and reset. The cool thing about this is if you add an event handler it will bypass submitting the form.
<button type="button">My Button</button>
Success story sharing
to use <button>
<button>
s incorrectly in some cases. Additionally,<button>
is not 100% cross-browser-compatible in that different browsers may submit different values for the same<button>
when used in a form.type
attribute in a<button>
tag issubmit
. When changed totype=button
, the<button>
is given no default behavior. Seetype
attribute here: developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/button