How to fix Form action with method get

Question

I have a small issues with my code. Basically, I have a form in my index.html file:

The form from page 1 is the following:

<form method="get" name="basicSearch" id = "basicSearch" action="page2.html">
    <input name="location" type="text" class="BasicSearch" id="searchInput" placeholder="Location">
    <button type= "submit" class="BasicSearch" id="searchBtn" placeholder="Search"></button>
</form>

For this form, I want to use OpenWeatherMap API in order to get some weather data. My problem is the following: I want to get what the user inputs in the form, which I think I can get by using, for example:

var searchInput = document.getElementById("searchInput");

In this variable I can store the location. And this variable, I want to append to the link that does fetch the data from the API, in the javascript code. When the user inputs, for example: New York, and press Search, the form action should redirect him to page2.html, where there I can show the weather data.

How can I show that weather data in the page2, with the location input from page1? I tried many times but no luck. Some Javascript code down below:

let units = 'metric';
let searchMethod = 'q';

let searchButton = document.getElementById("searchBtn");
let searchInput = document.getElementById("searchInput");

if (searchButton) {
    searchButton.addEventListener('click', () => {
        let searchTerm = searchInput.value;
        if (searchTerm)
            searchWeather(searchTerm);
    });
}

function searchWeather(searchTerm) {
    fetch(`http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?${searchMethod}=${searchTerm}&APPID=${appId}&units=${units}`).then(result => {
        return result.json();
    }).then(result => {
        init(result);
    })
}

function init(resultFromServer){
    let weatherDescriptionHeader = document.getElementById('weatherDescriptionHeader');
    let temperatureElement = document.getElementById('temperature');
    let humidityElement = document.getElementById('humidity');
    let windSpeedElement = document.getElementById('windSpeed');
    let cityHeader = document.getElementById('cityHeader');
    let weatherIcon = document.getElementById('documentIconImg');

    weatherIcon.src = 'http://openweathermap.org/img/w/' + resultFromServer.weather[0].icon + '.png';

    let resultDescription = resultFromServer.weather[0].description;
    weatherDescriptionHeader.innerText = resultDescription.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + resultDescription.slice(1);

    temperatureElement.innerHTML = Math.floor(resultFromServer.main.temp) + '&#176' + " C";
    windSpeedElement.innerHTML = 'Winds at ' + Math.floor(resultFromServer.wind.speed) + ' mph';
    cityHeader.innerHTML = resultFromServer.name;
    humidityElement.innerHTML = 'Humidity levels at ' + resultFromServer.main.humidity + '%';
}

That is some javascript code which should get the weather data. Then, in page2, I have the following in HTML:

<div id = "weatherContainer">
    <div id = "weatherDescription">
        <h1 id = "cityHeader"></h1>
        <div id= "weatherMain">
            <div id = "temperature"></div>
            <div id = "weatherDescriptionHeader"></div>
            <div><img id = "documentIconImg"></div>
        </div>
        <hr>
        <div id = "windSpeed" class = "bottom-details"></div>
        <div id = "humidity" class = "bottom-details">></div>
    </div>
</div>

I expected to have the weather data in page2, where the divs are. Can somebody give me an advice, please? Thank you!

show your server side code as well.. I dont think it will possible without server side code unless you are using SPA — noone, Apr 08 '19 at 11:49
your page2 code is referring to elements in the page1 page ... so, that won't work ... page2 would be loaded with `?location=whateverwaseteredbytheuser` as the `location.search` ... so `new URLSearchParams(location.search).get('location')` will be the location entered in page 1 — Jaromanda X, Apr 08 '19 at 11:54
@JaromandaX why you are not recommending the variable in the global scope? — weegee, Apr 08 '19 at 11:59
@window.document - go to browser console, type `var location="blah"`, did you see what happened? (use Firefox if nothing happened :p ) — Jaromanda X, Apr 08 '19 at 12:02

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 08 '19 at 12:01

Since the form in page1 doesn't exist in page 2, remove

let searchButton = document.getElementById("searchBtn");
let searchInput = document.getElementById("searchInput");

if (searchButton) {
    searchButton.addEventListener('click', () => {
        let searchTerm = searchInput.value;
        if (searchTerm)
            searchWeather(searchTerm);
    });
}

instead put

ley searchTerm = new URLSearchParams(location.search).get('location');
searchWeather(searchTerm);

Explanation

When the page 1 form is submitted, it will load page2 like

page2.html?location=xxxx

where xxxx is the value of the <input name='location' ...

location.search will be ?location=xxxx

URLSearchParams makes dealing with these (when you have more than one especially) easier than the old method of splitting/decoding/jumping through hoops

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 08 '19 at 12:04

We can simply just submit the form and get the current form input from url on page2.html

<form method="get" name="basicSearch" id = "basicSearch" action="page2.html">

        <input name="location" type="text" class="BasicSearch" id="searchInput" placeholder="Location">
        <button type= "submit" class="BasicSearch" id="searchBtn" placeholder="Search">Search</button>

</form>

And on the load of page2.html (before your ajax call), we can get the 'searchInput' (location) from URL by following:

<script>
   let params = (new URL(document.location)).searchParams;
   var searchInput= params.get('location');
</script>

Now, we can use 'searchInput' param for your api call and fetch the result.

How to fix Form action with method get

2 Answers2