Process a Form Submit with Multiple Submit Buttons in Javascript

Question

I have a form with multiple submit buttons, and I'd like to capture when any of them are pressed, and perform different JS code for each one.

<form id="my-form">
    <input type="email" name="email" placeholder="(Your email)" />
    <button type="submit" value="button-one">Go - One</button>
    <button type="submit" value="button-two">Go - Two</button>
    <button type="submit" value="button-three">Go - Three</button>
</form>

Looking at an older answer, I can process all of the submit buttons in JS:

function processForm(e) {
    if (e.preventDefault) e.preventDefault();

    /* do what you want with the form */

    // You must return false to prevent the default form behavior
    return false;
}

var form = document.getElementById('my-form');
if (form.attachEvent) {
    form.attachEvent("submit", processForm);
} else {
    form.addEventListener("submit", processForm);
}

But how can I discriminate amongst the different submit buttons? Is there a way to get the value and perform logic from there?

I don't need to have three submit buttons, per se... I just need three different buttons in a form to perform three different actions.

Thanks!

Banana · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-25T13:34:58.093

8

you can attach a custom click handler to all buttons, and that way you can check which button is clicked before submitting the form:

Live Example

$("#my-form button").click(function(ev){
    ev.preventDefault()// cancel form submission
    if($(this).attr("value")=="button-one"){
        //do button 1 thing
    }
    // $("#my-form").submit(); if you want to submit the form
});

edited Sep 25 '14 at 13:34

answered Sep 25 '14 at 13:20

Banana

7,424
3
22
43

This works well! I can remove the `attachEvent` stuff and already have jQuery so I might as well use it. Thanks! – Berto Sep 25 '14 at 13:38
I hope this helps you , Jsfiddle code is here : http://jsfiddle.net/pragneshkaria/eusyrdmy/2/ – Pragnesh Karia Sep 25 '14 at 13:47

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 25 '14 at 13:27

use this

function processForm(e) {
if (e.preventDefault) e.preventDefault();
/* do what you want with the form */
var submit_type = document.getElementById('my-form').getAttribute("value");
if(submit_type=="button-one"){

}//and so on
// You must return false to prevent the default form behavior
return false;
}

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 24 '21 at 18:35

1

HTML:

<form id = "form" onSubmit = {handleSubmit}>
<input type="email" name="email" placeholder="(Your email)" />
<button type="submit" value="button-one">Go - One</button>
<button type="submit" value="button-two">Go - Two</button>
<button type="submit" value="button-three">Go - Three</button>
</form>

JS:

const handleSubmit = e => {
    e.preventDefault();

    var ans = document.activeElement['value'];
    console.log(ans);
};

answered Mar 24 '21 at 18:35

sauravjoshi23

837
11
9

1

Didn't know about activeElement before. This helped me as I had multiple dynamic forms as well as all input fields in the form were dynamic. Moreover, I had two submit-type buttons. I was using jquery's serializedArray() to get all the values of the form using $("form").submit and reading using $(this). activeElement helped me to get the type of submit button clicked. Thanks. – curious.netter Dec 08 '21 at 14:58

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 16 '22 at 17:16

You can also use the read-only submitter property of a SubmitEvent.

HTML (same as you have):

<form id="my-form">
    <input type="email" name="email" placeholder="(Your email)" />
    <button type="submit" value="button-one">Go - One</button>
    <button type="submit" value="button-two">Go - Two</button>
    <button type="submit" value="button-three">Go - Three</button>
</form>

JS:

let form = document.getElementById("my-form");
form.addEventListener("submit", handleSubmit);

function handleSubmit(event) {
    event.preventDefault()
    alert(event.submitter.value) // shows a different value depending on button pressed

From there on, it's easy to use submitter as a control flow, e.g.:

let form = document.getElementById("my-form");
form.addEventListener("submit", handleSubmit);

function handleSubmit(event) {
    event.preventDefault()
    submitter = event.submitter.value
    switch (submitter) {
        case "button-one":
            alert(1)
            break;
        case "button-two":
            alert(2)
            break;
        case "button-three":
            alert(3)
            break;
    }

}

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 25 '14 at 13:22

0

But how can I discriminate amongst the different submit buttons? Is there a way to get the value and perform logic from there?

Yes, you can use querySelector to grab elements with attributes.

document.querySelector('#my-form button[value="button-one"]' )

answered Sep 25 '14 at 13:22

Matt Styles

2,442
1
18
23

3

This allows you to target the individual buttons, but doesn't use logic based on which button submitted the form. – ricdesi Nov 03 '16 at 15:17

Process a Form Submit with Multiple Submit Buttons in Javascript

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