Question

This might be a basic question of HTML but I’d like to know if it is possible in PHP. Usually when building a form submission page, the form tag is set per one form group. So the submit button is assigned per one form tag. The elements of form fields have to be close as enclosed in the form tag. If I want more complicated layouts, then is it possible to separate form tags to divide form fields?

For example,

<?php
    print_r($_POST);
?>
<form name="test" action="" method="post">
    First name: <input type="text" name="firstname" value="" /><br />
    <input type="submit" value="submit" />
</form> 
<p>some other contents</p>
<form name="test" action="" method="post">
    Last name: <input type="text" name="lastname" value="" />
</form>

In this case, even if the second field is filled, the value won’t be sent. If possible, I’d like to have just one submit button and control multiple forms.

Answer 1

Wrap your entire page into a single form and use some kind of deliminator for your elements (for instance “form2_field1”). I have never found having multiple forms useful (even if there are hide/unhide values) and my guess is that the submit button will probably only submit the form it is wrapped in. As one of the comments has mentioned, use JQuery if you want more complex forms. However, my recommendation is just to send over the entire form, whether it is complex or not and process it according to what you want.