Question

<form method="post" action="sendmail.php" name="Email_form">
Message ID <input type="text" name="message_id" /><br/><br/>
Aggressive conduct <input type="radio" name="conduct" value="aggressive contact" /><br/><br/>
Offensive conduct <input type="radio" name="conduct" value="offensive conduct" /><br/><br/>
Rasical conduct <input type="radio" name="conduct" value="Rasical conduct" /><br/><br/>
Intimidating conduct <input type="radio" name="conduct" value="intimidating conduct" /><br/><br/>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Send Mail" onclick=validate() />
</form>

    window.onload = init;  
    function init()     
    {          
        document.forms["Email_form"].onsubmit = function() 
        {                                                                 
            validate();                                                                 
            return false;                                                             

        };     
    } 

    function validate() 
    {     
        var form = document.forms["Email_form"]; //Try avoiding space in form name.     
        if(form.elements["message_id"].value == "") { //No value in the "message_id" 
            box     
            {         
                alert("Enter Message Id");         
                //Alert is not a very good idea.          
                //You may want to add a span per element for the error message        
                //An div/span at the form level to populate the error message is also ok        
                //Populate this div or span with the error message         
                //document.getElementById("errorDivId").innerHTML = "No message id";

                 return false;  //There is an error. Don't proceed with form submission.

            } 
        }
    }
</script>

Am i missing something or am i just being stupid?

edit***
sorry i should add! the problem is that i want the javascript to stop users going to ‘sendmail.php’ if they have not entered a message id and clicked a radio button… at the moment this does not do this and sends blank emails if nothing is inputted

Answer 1

You forgot the underscore when identifying the form:

document.forms["Email_form"].onsubmit = ...

EDIT:

document.forms["Email_form"].onsubmit = function() {
    return validate();
};

function validate() {
    var form = document.forms["Email_form"];
    if (form.elements["message_id"].value == "") {
        alert("Enter Message Id");
        return false;
    }
    var conduct = form.elements['conduct']; //Grab radio buttons
    var conductValue; //Store the selected value
    for (var i = 0; i<conduct.length; i++) { //Loop through the list and find selected value
        if(conduct[i].checked) { conductValue = conduct[i].value } //Store it
    }
    if (conductValue == undefined) { //Check to make sure we have a value, otherwise fail and alert the user
        alert("Enter Conduct");
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}

return the value of validate. Validate should return true if your validation succeeds, and false otherwise. If the onsubmit function returns false, the page won’t change.

EDIT: Added code to check the radio button. You should consider using a javascript framework to make your life easier. Also, you should remove the onclick attribute from your submit input button as validation should be handled in the submit even, not the button’s click