How to submit an HTML form without redirection

Question

If I have a form like this,

<form action="/Car/Edit/17" id="myForm" method="post" name="myForm"> ... </form>

how can I submit it without redirecting to another view by JavaScript/jQuery?

I read plenty of answers from Stack Overflow, but all of them redirect me to the view returned by the POST function.

Answer 1

You can achieve that by redirecting the form's action to an invisible <iframe>. It doesn't require any JavaScript or any other type of scripts.

<iframe name="dummyframe" id="dummyframe" style="display: none;"></iframe>

<form action="submitscript.php" target="dummyframe">
    <!-- Form body here -->
</form>

Answer 2

In order to achieve what you want, you need to use jQuery Ajax as below:

$('#myForm').submit(function(e){
    e.preventDefault();
    $.ajax({
        url: '/Car/Edit/17/',
        type: 'post',
        data:$('#myForm').serialize(),
        success:function(){
            // Whatever you want to do after the form is successfully submitted
        }
    });
});

Also try this one:

function SubForm(e){
    e.preventDefault();
    var url = $(this).closest('form').attr('action'),
    data = $(this).closest('form').serialize();
    $.ajax({
        url: url,
        type: 'post',
        data: data,
        success: function(){
           // Whatever you want to do after the form is successfully submitted
       }
   });
}

Final solution

This worked flawlessly. I call this function from Html.ActionLink(...)

function SubForm (){
    $.ajax({
        url: '/Person/Edit/@Model.Id/',
        type: 'post',
        data: $('#myForm').serialize(),
        success: function(){
            alert("worked");
        }
    });
}

Answer 3

Since all current answers use jQuery or tricks with iframe, figured there is no harm to add method with just plain JavaScript:

function formSubmit(event) {
  var url = "/post/url/here";
  var request = new XMLHttpRequest();
  request.open('POST', url, true);
  request.onload = function() { // request successful
  // we can use server response to our request now
    console.log(request.responseText);
  };

  request.onerror = function() {
    // request failed
  };

  request.send(new FormData(event.target)); // create FormData from form that triggered event
  event.preventDefault();
}

// and you can attach form submit event like this for example
function attachFormSubmitEvent(formId){
  document.getElementById(formId).addEventListener("submit", formSubmit);
}

Answer 4

Place a hidden iFrame at the bottom of your page and target it in your form:

<iframe name="hiddenFrame" width="0" height="0" border="0" style="display: none;"></iframe>

<form action="/Car/Edit/17" id="myForm" method="post" name="myForm" target="hiddenFrame"> ... </form>

Quick and easy. Keep in mind that while the target attribute is still widely supported (and supported in HTML5), it was deprecated in HTML 4.01.

So you really should be using Ajax to future-proof.

Answer 5

Okay, I'm not going to tell you a magical way of doing it because there isn't. If you have an action attribute set for a form element, it will redirect.

If you don't want it to redirect simply don't set any action and set onsubmit="someFunction();"

In your someFunction() you do whatever you want, (with AJAX or not) and in the ending, you add return false; to tell the browser not to submit the form...

Answer 6

One-liner solution as of 2020, if your data is not meant to be sent as multipart/form-data or application/x-www-form-urlencoded:

<form onsubmit='return false'>
    <!-- ... -->           
</form>

Answer 7

You need Ajax to make it happen. Something like this:

$(document).ready(function(){
    $("#myform").on('submit', function(){
        var name = $("#name").val();
        var email = $("#email").val();
        var password = $("#password").val();
        var contact = $("#contact").val();

        var dataString = 'name1=' + name + '&email1=' + email + '&password1=' + password + '&contact1=' + contact;
        if(name=='' || email=='' || password=='' || contact=='')
        {
            alert("Please fill in all fields");
        }
        else
        {
            // Ajax code to submit form.
            $.ajax({
                type: "POST",
                url: "ajaxsubmit.php",
                data: dataString,
                cache: false,
                success: function(result){
                    alert(result);
                }
           });
        }
        return false;
    });
});

Answer 8

See jQuery's post function.

I would create a button, and set an onClickListener ($('#button').on('click', function(){});), and send the data in the function.

Also, see the preventDefault function, of jQuery!

Answer 9

The desired effect can also be achieved by moving the submit button outside of the form as described here:

Prevent page reload and redirect on form submit ajax/jquery

Like this:

<form id="getPatientsForm">
    Enter URL for patient server
    <br/><br/>
    <input name="forwardToUrl" type="hidden" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/patient/patientList.jsp" />
    <input name="patientRootUrl" size="100"></input>
    <br/><br/>
</form>

<button onclick="javascript:postGetPatientsForm();">Connect to Server</button>

Answer 10

Using this snippet, you can submit the form and avoid redirection. Instead you can pass the success function as argument and do whatever you want.

function submitForm(form, successFn){
    if (form.getAttribute("id") != '' || form.getAttribute("id") != null){
        var id = form.getAttribute("id");
    } else {
        console.log("Form id attribute was not set; the form cannot be serialized");
    }

    $.ajax({
        type: form.method,
        url: form.action,
        data: $(id).serializeArray(),
        dataType: "json",
        success: successFn,
        //error: errorFn(data)
    });
}

And then just do:

var formElement = document.getElementById("yourForm");
submitForm(formElement, function() {
    console.log("Form submitted");
});

Answer 11

Fire and forget vanilla js + svelte

function handleSubmit(e) {
    const request = new Request(`/products/${item.ItemCode}?_method=PUT`, { 
        method: 'POST', 
        body: new FormData(e.target),
    });
    fetch(request)
}

Used in Svelte:

<form method="post" on:submit|preventDefault={handleSubmit}>

Answer 12

Using web components you can create an easily reusable form component that handles this nicely.

function urlencodeFormData(fd: FormData) {
  let s = '';
  function encode(s: string) {
    return encodeURIComponent(s).replace(/%20/g, '+');
  }
  const formData: [string, string][] = [];
  fd.forEach((value, key) => {
    if (value instanceof File) {
      formData.push([key, value.name]);
    } else {
      formData.push([key, value]);
    }
  });
  for (const [key, value] of formData) {
    s += (s ? '&' : '') + encode(key) + '=' + encode(value);
  }
  return s;
}

const xhrOnSubmit = (event: SubmitEvent) => {
  console.log('Form submitted');
  const form: HTMLFormElement | null =
    event.target instanceof HTMLFormElement ? event.target : null;
  if (form == null) {
    console.error('Event target of form listener is not a form!');
    return;
  }
  let baseUrl = form.action;
  if (baseUrl == null || baseUrl === '') {
    baseUrl = window.location.href;
  }

  const requestUrl = new URL(baseUrl, window.location.href);
  
const shouldClear = form.getAttribute('data-clear-form') === 'true';

  // Decide on encoding
  const formenctype =
    event.submitter?.getAttribute('formenctype') ??
    event.submitter?.getAttribute('formencoding');
  const enctype =
    formenctype ??
    form.getAttribute('enctype') ??
    form.getAttribute('encoding') ??
    'application/x-www-form-urlencoded';

  // Decide on method
  let formMethod =
    event.submitter?.getAttribute('formmethod') ??
    form.getAttribute('method')?.toLowerCase() ??
    'get';

  const formData = new FormData(form);

  // Encode body
  let body: BodyInit | null = null;
  if (formMethod === 'get') {
    requestUrl.search = new URLSearchParams(
      urlencodeFormData(formData)
    ).toString();
  } else if (formMethod === 'post') {
    if (enctype === 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded') {
      body = urlencodeFormData(formData);
    } else if (enctype === 'multipart/form-data') {
      body = formData;
    } else if (enctype === 'text/plain') {
      let text = '';
      // @ts-ignore - FormData.entries() is not in the TS definition
      for (const element of formData.keys()) {
        text += `${element}=${JSON.stringify(formData.get(element))}\n`;
      }
    } else {
      throw new Error(`Illegal enctype: ${enctype}`);
    }
  } else if (formMethod === 'dialog') {
    // Allow default behavior
    return;
  } else {
    throw new Error(`Illegal form method: ${formMethod}`);
  }

  // Send request
  const requestOptions: RequestInit = {
    method: formMethod,
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': enctype,
    },
  };
  if (body != null && formMethod === 'post') {
    requestOptions.body = body;
  }
  const response = fetch(baseUrl, requestOptions).then((response) => {
    if (shouldClear) {
      form.reset();
    }
    if (response.ok) {
      form.dispatchEvent(
        new CustomEvent('xhr-form-success', {
          detail: response,
        })
      );
    } else {
      form.dispatchEvent(
        new CustomEvent('xhr-form-failure', {
          detail: response,
        })
      );
    }
    return response;
  });

  event.preventDefault();
};

customElements.define(
  'xhr-form',
  class extends HTMLFormElement {
    constructor() {
      console.log('Form constructed');
      super();
    }

    connectedCallback() {
      this.addEventListener('submit', xhrOnSubmit);
    }

    disconnectedCallback() {
      this.removeEventListener('submit', xhrOnSubmit);
    }
  },
  { extends: 'form' }
);

An example of use (everything to do with the events is optional):

<form action="/printer" method="post" id="xhr-form" is="xhr-form">
  <h2>XHR POST Test</h2>
  <input type="text" name="name" placeholder="Name">
  <input type="number" name="age" placeholder="Age">
  <input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

<script>
  const xhrForm = document.getElementById('xhr-form');

  xhrForm.addEventListener('xhr-form-success', (event) => {
    console.log('XHR Form Success', event.detail);
  });

  xhrForm.addEventListener('xhr-form-failure', (event) => {
    console.log('XHR Form Failure', event.detail);
  });
</script>

Answer 13

If you control the back end, then use something like response.redirect instead of response.send.

You can create custom HTML pages for this or just redirect to something you already have.

In Express.js:

const handler = (req, res) => {
  const { body } = req
  handleResponse(body)
  .then(data => {
    console.log(data)
    res.redirect('https://yoursite.com/ok.html')
  })
  .catch(err => {
    console.log(err)
    res.redirect('https://yoursite.com/err.html')
  })
}
...
app.post('/endpoint', handler)