Question

Inside a form I have a button. What is the difference between when I submit the form via JavaScript like this

<button onclick="document.forms[0].submit();">

and when I submit it like this

<button type="submit"></button>?

The first one works for me with most browsers except webkit-based. The latter works fine as well. No difference in functionality is apparent to me. Is there one?

Answer 1

The first example:

<button onclick="document.forms[0].submit();">

…will do two things:

1. Its onclick will submit the first form in the document (i.e., the one specified by the 0 index in forms[0]).
2. It will submit the form it is in (if it is in a form) because a button with no type attribute specified will be a submit button by default.

This two-step double-submit behaviour can be seen in this quick-and-dirty demo: http://jsfiddle.net/fMwuX/ (and is likely to lead to weird behaviour that might be a bit confusing to debug). If the button isn’t actually in a form then this won’t be a problem.

The second example:

<button type="submit"></button>

Will simply submit the form it is in (if it is in one).

In my opinion the second option is definitely preferable for several reasons, including but not limited to:

1. It will work even if the user has JS disabled.
2. It doesn’t hard-code a form index with forms[0].
3. It is shorter and clearer.
4. It won’t clash with other form submit validation.