JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 5th Edition

Name

Form: a <form> in an HTML document — DOM Level 2 HTML: Node → Element → HTMLElement → Form

Properties

readonly HTMLCollection elements

An array (HTMLCollection) of all elements in the form. See Form.elements[].

readonly long length

The number of form elements in the form. This is the same value as elements.length.

In addition to these properties, Form also defines the properties in the following table, which correspond directly to HTML attributes:

Property	Attribute	Description
String acceptCharset	acceptcharset	Character sets the server can accept
String action	action	URL of the form handler
String enctype	enctype	Encoding of the form
String method	method	HTTP method used for form submission
String name	name	Name of the form
String target	target	Frame or window name for form submission results

Methods

reset( )

Resets all form elements to their default values.

submit( )

Submits the form to a web server.

Event Handlers

onreset

Invoked just before the elements of the form are reset.

onsubmit

Invoked just before the form is submitted. This event handler allows form entries to be validated before being submitted.

HTML Syntax

A Form object is created with a standard HTML <form> tag. The form contains input elements created with <input>, <select>, <textarea>, and other tags:

<form
    [ name="form_name" ]       // Used to name the form in JavaScript
    [ target="window_name" ]   // The name of the window for responses
    [ action="url" ] // The URL to ...