Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference

Name

<FORM> — NN all IE all HTML all

Synopsis

<FORM>...</FORM>

End Tag: Required

Despite the importance of HTML forms in communication between web page visitors and the server, a FORM element at its heart is nothing more than a container of controls. Most, but not all, form controls are created in the document as INPUT elements. Even if user interaction with INPUT elements is not intended for submission to a server (perhaps some client-side scripting requires interaction with the user), such INPUT elements are contained by a FORM element.

A document may contain any number of FORM elements, but a client may submit the settings of controls from only one form at a time. Therefore, the only time it makes sense to divide a series of form controls into multiple FORM elements is when the control groups can be submitted independently of each other. If you need to logically or structurally group controls while maintaining a single form, use the FIELDSET element to create the necessary subgroupings of controls.

When a form is submitted to the server, all controls that have NAME attributes assigned to them pass both their names and values—in name/value pairs—to the server for further processing (or possibly as an email attachment or message with Navigator). A Common Gateway Interface (CGI) program running on the server can accept and dissect the name/value pairs for further processing (adding a record to a server database or initiating a keyword search, for example). The server program is ...