CSCI 121 - Lecture 8 - Advanced Forms

Topics Covered

1. <form> - Form element
• action attribute - defines how to submit a form
• The action attribute defines the action to be performed when the form is submitted.
• Normally, the form data is sent to a web page on the server when the user clicks on the submit button.
• method attribute - defines the form submission method
• The method attribute specifies the HTTP method (GET or POST) to be used when submitting the form data:
• <form action="action_page.php" method="get">
• The default method when submitting form data is GET.
• However, when GET is used, the submitted form data will be visible in the page address field.
• Additional facts about using GET:
• Appends form-data into the URL in name/value pairs
• The length of a URL is limited (about 3000 characters)
• Never use GET to send sensitive data! (will be visible in the URL)
• Useful for form submissions where a user want to bookmark the result
• GET is better for non-secure data, like query strings in Google
• <form action="action_page.php" method="post">
• Always use POST if the form data contains sensitive or personal information. The POST method does not display the submitted form data in the page address field.
• POST has no size limitations, and can be used to send large amounts of data.
• Additional facts about using POST:
• Appends form-data inside the body of the HTTP request (data is not shown is in URL)
• Has no size limitations
• Form submissions with POST cannot be bookmarked