HTML forms are used to collect some data from the site visitor. The HTML <form>…..</form> tag is used to create an HTML form.

<input>
<textarea>
<button>
<select>
<option>
<optgroup>
<fieldset>
<label>

Input Tag

<input> tag prompts the user to enter data and also request for the information from the web server after submitting the web form.

<form>
	<input>
</form>
No input end tag in HTML5

Type Attribute

It indicates the type of input element. It’s an empty tag. The default value is text.

Ex: –

<input> 
<input type=“text”>

• Text – It defines a single-line text field. <input type=“text”>
• Password – A password field is like text field, the difference being that this control hides each typed character by displaying an asterisk(*) or bullets(●) instead of the character itself. <input type=“password”>
• Button – This is used to add a button on a web form to activate a script when an user click the button. <input type=“button”>
• Email – This field is used to add an email address or a list of email address to a form, where type=“email” is a value for the input type. The input format should be an email like example@gmail.com else it will prompt an error. <input type=“email”>
• Check Box – A check box is a small box, which when selected includes a checkmark. It is used to allow the user to select one or more than one of the options available on a web page. An User can select or clear the check box by clicking it. <input type=“checkbox”>
• Radio Button – A radio button is used to create a series of options of which only one can be selected. It is displayed as a circle which when selected, displays a dot in the middle. <input type=“radio”>
• •URL – The URL field is used to enter only the web addresses, in their correct format. If the URL is not entered in the correct format then the URL field validates the text field to enter web address. <input type=“url”> Autofocus – helps in keeping the focus of mouse pointer on the input field. Pattern – defines the regular expression of the text that should be entered in the text field.
• Search Box – This is used to add a search box to a form. <input type=“search”>
• Tel – The tel type represents a one-line plain-text edit for entering a telephone number. <input type=“tel”>
• Range – Range input represents the input of limited range numerical values. <input type=“range”>
• Number – Number is used to validate the textbox only if the value within the field is a numerical value. <input type=“number”>
• File – This is used to upload a file on a web page. You also need to set the enctype=“multipart/form-data”. <input type=“file”>
• Image – It represents either an image from which the UA enables a user to interactively select a pair of coordinates and submit the form, or alternatively a button from which the user can submit the form. <input type=“image”>
• Hidden – A hidden control stores the data that is not visible to the user on a web page. This control is used to submit some information, which can not be edited by user. <input type=“hidden”>
• Submit – A submit button is used to transfer form data to the URL specified in the <form action> tag.<input type=“submit”>
• Reset Button – A reset button helps user to clear all the data that they have entered in the text fields.<input type=“reset”>
• Date – This is used for input fields that should contain a date. <input type=“date”>
• Time – It allows the user to select a time. <input type=“time”>
• DateTime – It allows the user to select  date and time. <input type=“datetime”>
• Datetime-local – It allows the user to select a date and time. <input type=“datetime-local”>
• Month – It allows the user to select a month and year. <input type=“month”>
• Week – It allows the user to select a week and year. <input type=“week”>
• Color – It is used for input fields that should contain a color. <input type=“color”>

accept-charset Attribute

It specifies the character encodings that are to be used for the form submission.

ISO-8859-1 Character encoding for the Latin alphabet

UTF-8 Character encoding for Unicode

<form accept-charset=“UTF-8”>

Action Attribute

It contains a URL that defines where to send the data after submitting the form. It specifies the physical address of the server to which the user data should be redirected at the click of the submit button. action=http://www.something.com/something.html action=“page.html” action=“gotform.php” action=“example.asp”

If the action attribute is omitted, the action is set to the current page.

Autocomplete

On – The browser will automatically complete values based on values that the user has entered before. Off – User need to write all values each time they fill the form <form autocomplete=“on”>

enctype Attribute

It specifies how the browser encodes the data before it sends it to the server.

<form enctype=“multipart/form-data”>

Method Attribute

It Specifies how to send the form data to a web server. The data can be sent as URL variables, by using the get method or as HTTP post, by using the post method.

• GET(default)
• POST

GET

GET sends the data as part of the URL.

• Appends form-data into the URL in name/value pairs.
• The length of a URL is limited 2048 characters.
• Never use GET method if you have password or other sensitive information to be sent to the server.
• Useful for form submissions where a user want to bookmark the result.
• GET is better for non-secure data, like query strings in Google.
• GET can’t be used to send binary data, ex:-  images or word documents.

<form action=“some.php” method = “GET”>

If we use an invalid value for the method attribute of the <form> tag, the browser will use the default value GET.

POST

HTTP POST requests supply additional data from the client (browser) to the server in the message body.

• Appends form-data inside the body of the HTTP request (data is not shown is in URL).
• The POST method does not have any restriction on data size to be sent.
• Form submissions with POST cannot be bookmarked.
• The POST method can be used to send ASCII as well as binary data. Ex:-  image and word documents etc.
• The data sent by POST method goes through HTTP header so security depends on HTTP protocol. By using Secure HTTP you can make sure that your information is secure.
• POST is a little safer than GET because the parameters are not stored in browser history or in web server logs.

<form action=“some.php” method = “POST”>

Name  Attribute

Specifies a name used to identify the form. It is Used to give a name to the control which is sent to the server to be recognized and get the value. name=“lastname”

novalidate

If we use novalidate attribute in form tag then the validation will not take place, even if there is a required filed.

<form novalidate>
<form novalidate=“novalidate”> 
<form novalidate=“true”> 

There is one more tag formnovalidate which is used by input tag to speficiy novlidate this particular text or field we will study about this later.

Text Direction (dirname)

Specifies that the text direction will be submitted

<input type=“text” name=“city” dirname=“city.dir”>

Min and Max

number, range, date, datetime-local, month, time and week.