I have created a HTML form which has two buttons (instead of a submit button), each programmatically sending the form to a unique form action address.

<form id="formExample">
<input type="text" id="input1" required>
<label type="button" onClick="form1()">Form Action 1</label>
<label type="button" onClick="form2()">Form Action 2</label>
</form>

The scripts:

form = document.getElementById("formExample");

function form1() {
    form.action="example1.php";
    form.submit();
}
function form2() {
    form.action="example2.php";
    form.submit();
}

Work well, responding to which button you press. However, the same html form validation that worked before (when using a 'submit' button), no longer shows a hint and the form sends regardless of whether there is input or not.

I have read that because I am calling the form.submit() programmatically, it bypasses the onSubmit() function of a form, which is where the validation takes place.

My question is: Can I programmatically force the onSubmit() so that I get the validation pop up? I must make clear that I am NOT wanting to create a JavaScript form validation, i.e. using an alert; rather, use JavaScript to enforce the HTML validation as found here, when you click submit: /

I have created a HTML form which has two buttons (instead of a submit button), each programmatically sending the form to a unique form action address.

<form id="formExample">
<input type="text" id="input1" required>
<label type="button" onClick="form1()">Form Action 1</label>
<label type="button" onClick="form2()">Form Action 2</label>
</form>

The scripts:

form = document.getElementById("formExample");

function form1() {
    form.action="example1.php";
    form.submit();
}
function form2() {
    form.action="example2.php";
    form.submit();
}

Work well, responding to which button you press. However, the same html form validation that worked before (when using a 'submit' button), no longer shows a hint and the form sends regardless of whether there is input or not.

I have read that because I am calling the form.submit() programmatically, it bypasses the onSubmit() function of a form, which is where the validation takes place.

My question is: Can I programmatically force the onSubmit() so that I get the validation pop up? I must make clear that I am NOT wanting to create a JavaScript form validation, i.e. using an alert; rather, use JavaScript to enforce the HTML validation as found here, when you click submit: https://jsfiddle/qdzxfm9u/

• javascript
• html

• 4 You can merely change your button's type from button to submit and drop the form.submit() from your JS part. – cFreed Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 19:38
• 1 If you can use JQuery, have a look at this answer. – Daniel Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 19:40
• Cheers @cFreed, That has solved the problem! If you'd like to provide it again in the answer part, I will happily accept as the solution. Thanks! – dantan04 Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 20:00
• That's done! Glad to help, and glad you accept my answer :) – cFreed Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 20:13
• @dantan04, you may consider <input type="submit" onClick="form1()" value="Form Action 1" /> instead of <label type="submit" onClick="form2()">Form Action 2</label> as the latter is not a valid HTML, put your form html inside the body in validator.w3/nu/#textarea and click on check – Mi-Creativity Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 22:00

3 Answers 3

You can merely change your button's type to submit and drop the form.submit() from your JS part.

So the HTML part bees:

<form id="formExample">
<input type="text" id="input1" required>
<button type="submit" onClick="form1()">Form Action 1</button>
<button type="submit" onClick="form2()">Form Action 2</button>
</form>

This way, clicking any button does submit by itself, but before is executed the JS part:

form = document.getElementById("formExample");

function form1() {
    form.action="example1.php";
}
function form2() {
    form.action="example2.php";
}

EDIT

Warning: I originally based my solution on a copy of the OP HTML part, where the "pseudo-buttons" used a strange element <label type="input"...>, so I read (too quickly) as if it was <button type="button"...> and simply changed type from input to submit!
This way, it couldn't work as expected.

It is now corrected in the above code.

Maybe something like this :

var form = document.getElementById("formExample");

function form1() {
  form.action="example1.php";
}

function form2() {
  form.action="example2.php";
}

<form id="formExample">
  <input type="text" id="input1" required>
  <input type="submit" onClick="form1()" value="Form Action 1" />
  <input type="submit" onClick="form2()" value="Form Action 2" />
</form>

How about making a dropdown list - could be radio buttons instead - containing the form two actions with one submit button like in this JS Fiddle, then having one function on form submit

var form = document.getElementById("formExample"),
    select = document.getElementById("slct");

form.addEventListener('submit', function() {
  if (select.value == 1) {
    form.action = "example1.php";
  } else {
    form.action = "example2.php";
  }
  // alert for demo only
  alert(form.action);
  form.submit();
});

<form id="formExample">
  <input type="text" id="input1" required>
  <select id="slct" required>
    <option></option>
    <option value="1">Form Action 1</option>
    <option value="2">Form Action 2</option>
  </select>
  <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>