Two submit buttons in one form

Question

I have two submit buttons in a form. How do I determine which one was hit serverside?

Answer 1

If you give each one a name, the clicked one will be sent through as any other input.

<input type="submit" name="button_1" value="Click me">

Answer 2

You can give each input a different value and keep the same name:

<input type="submit" name="action" value="Update" />
<input type="submit" name="action" value="Delete" />

Then in the code check to see which was triggered:

if ($_POST['action'] == 'Update') {
    //action for update here
} else if ($_POST['action'] == 'Delete') {
    //action for delete
} else {
    //invalid action!
}

The only problem with that is you tie your logic to the text within the input. You could also give each one a unique name and just check the $_POST for the existence of that input:

<input type="submit" name="update_button" value="Update" />
<input type="submit" name="delete_button" value="Delete" />

And in the code:

if (isset($_POST['update_button'])) {
    //update action
} else if (isset($_POST['delete_button'])) {
    //delete action
} else {
    //no button pressed
}

Answer 3

An even better solution consists of using button tags to submit the form:

<form>
    ...
    <button type="submit" name="action" value="update">Update</button>
    <button type="submit" name="action" value="delete">Delete</button>
</form>

This way there is no inconvenience with internationalization and multiple display languages (in the former solution, the label of the button is also the value sent to the server).

Answer 4

There’s a new HTML5 approach to this, the formaction attribute:

<button type="submit" formaction="/action_one">First action</button>
<button type="submit" formaction="/action_two">Second action</button>

Apparently this does not work in IE9 and earlier, but for other browsers you should be fine (see: w3schools.com HTML <button> formaction Attribute).

Personally, I generally use Javascript to submit forms remotely (for faster perceived feedback) with this approach as backup. Between the two, the only people not covered are IE<9 with Javascript disabled.

Of course, this may be inappropriate if you’re basically taking the same action server-side regardless of which button was pushed, but often if there are two user-side actions available then they will map to two server-side actions as well.

Edit: As noted by Pascal_dher in the comments, this attribute is also available on the <input> tag as well.

Answer 5

This is extremely easy to test

<form action="" method="get">

<input type="submit" name="sb" value="One">
<input type="submit" name="sb" value="Two">
<input type="submit" name="sb" value="Three">

</form>

Just put that in an HTML page, click the buttons, and look at the URL

Answer 6

<form>
    <input type="submit" value="Submit to a" formaction="/submit/a">
    <input type="submit" value="submit to b" formaction="/submit/b">    
</form>

Answer 7

Maybe the suggested solutions here worked in 2009, but ive tested all of this upvoted answers and nobody is working in any browsers.

only solution i found working is this: (but its a bit ugly to use i think)

<form method="post" name="form">
<input type="submit" value="dosomething" onclick="javascript: form.action='actionurl1';"/>
<input type="submit" value="dosomethingelse" onclick="javascript: form.action='actionurl2';"/>

Answer 8

Use the formaction HTML attribute (5th line):

<form action="/action_page.php" method="get">
    First name: <input type="text" name="fname"><br>
    Last name: <input type="text" name="lname"><br>
    <button type="submit">Submit</button><br>
    <button type="submit" formaction="/action_page2.php">Submit to another page</button>
</form>

Answer 9

The best way to deal with multiple submit button is using switch case in server script

<form action="demo_form.php" method="get">

Choose your favorite subject:

<button name="subject" type="submit" value="html">HTML</button>
<button name="subject" type="submit" value="css">CSS</button>
<button name="subject" type="submit" value="javascript">Java Script</button>
<button name="subject" type="submit" value="jquery">jQuery</button>

</form>

server code/server script - where you are submitting the form:

demo_form.php

<?php

switch($_REQUEST['subject']) {

    case 'html': //action for html here
                break;

    case 'css': //action for css here
                break;

    case 'javascript': //action for javascript here
                        break;

    case 'jquery': //action for jquery here
                    break;
}

?>

Source: W3Schools.com

Answer 10

Since you didn't specify what server-side scripting method you're using, I'll give you an example that works for Python, using CherryPy (although it may be useful for other contexts, too):

<button type="submit" name="register">Create a new account</button>
<button type="submit" name="login">Log into your account</button>

Rather than using the value to determine which button was pressed, you can use the name (with the <button> tag instead of <input>). That way, if your buttons happen to have the same text, it won't cause problems. The names of all form items, including buttons, are sent as part of the URL. In CherryPy, each of those is an argument for a method that does the server-side code. So, if your method just has **kwargs for its parameter list (instead of tediously typing out every single name of each form item) then you can check to see which button was pressed like this:

if "register" in kwargs:
    pass #Do the register code
elif "login" in kwargs:
    pass #Do the login code

Answer 11

Define name as array.

<form action='' method=POST>
    (...) some input fields (...)
    <input type=submit name=submit[save] value=Save>
    <input type=submit name=submit[delete] value=Delete>
</form>

Example server code (PHP):

if (isset($_POST["submit"])) {
    $sub = $_POST["submit"];

    if (isset($sub["save"])) {
        // save something;
    } elseif (isset($sub["delete"])) {
        // delete something
    }
}

elseif very important, because both will be parsed if not. Enjoy.

Answer 12

<form method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="'.$id.'" readonly="readonly"/>'; //any value to post PHP
<input type='submit' name='update' value='update' formAction='updateCars.php'/>
<input type='submit' name='delete' value='delete' formAction='sqlDelete.php'/>
</form>

Answer 13

I think you should be able to read the name/value in your GET array. I think that the button that wasn't clicked wont appear in that list.

Answer 14

Simple you can change the action of form on different submit buttons Click.

Try this in document.Ready

$(".acceptOffer").click(function () {
       $("form").attr("action", "/Managers/SubdomainTransactions");
});

$(".declineOffer").click(function () {
       $("form").attr("action", "/Sales/SubdomainTransactions");
});

Answer 15

You can also do it like this (I think it's very convenient if you have N inputs).

<input type="submit" name="row[1]" value="something">
<input type="submit" name="row[2]" value="something">
<input type="submit" name="row[3]" value="something">

And then in the server side (PHP in my example) you can read "row" as an array to get the index:

$index = key($_POST['row']);

$_POST['row'] will be an array with just one element, in the form index => value (for example: '2' => 'something").

http://php.net/manual/en/function.key.php

Answer 16

You can also use a href attribute and send a get with the value appended for each button. But the form wouldn't be required then

href="/SubmitForm?action=delete"
href="/SubmitForm?action=save"

Answer 17

If you have two submit button with different function then explicitly tell in input buttons with submit type like:

<input type="submit" click="save()" name="saveBtn" value="save">
<input type="submit" click="update()" name="updateBtn" value="update">

You don't need to worry about which button is called in server side. Write your logic in each function separately and call them. They will do their work without interfering with others.

Answer 18

You can present the buttons like this:

<input type="submit" name="typeBtn" value="BUY">
<input type="submit" name="typeBtn" value="SELL">

And then in the code you can get the value using:

if request.method == 'POST':
    #valUnits = request.POST.get('unitsInput','')
    #valPrice = request.POST.get('priceInput','')
    valType = request.POST.get('typeBtn','')

(valUnits and valPrice are some other values I extract from the form that I left in for illustration)