form/action default

[Oliver Block]

Hello,

does anybody no, which the default action is (if no action attribute value
is assigned).

I didn't find anything in the TR yet.

Best Regards,

Oliver
--
Leben ist mehr als schneller - weiter - höher
<http://www.nak-nrw.de/p_6_4.html>

[Rik]

Oliver Block wrote:

Hello,

does anybody no, which the default action is (if no action attribute
value is assigned).

I didn't find anything in the TR yet.

The same page most of the time, W3C states:
action = uri [CT]
This attribute specifies a form processing agent. User agent behavior
for a value other than an HTTP URI is undefined.

So, default browser behaviour, which is mostly the same page AFAIK, but can
differ between user agents. Conclusion is you should always set the action
attribute.

Grtz,
--
Rik Wasmus

[Oliver Block]

Rik wrote:

So, default browser behaviour, which is mostly the same page AFAIK, but
can differ between user agents. Conclusion is you should always set the
action attribute.

So action is by default 'base' I assume!?

Thank you.

Best Regards,

Oliver
--
Leben ist mehr als schneller - weiter - höher
<http://www.nak-nrw.de/p_6_4.html>

[Harlan Messinger]

Oliver Block wrote:

Rik wrote:

>So, default browser behaviour, which is mostly the same page AFAIK, but
can differ between user agents. Conclusion is you should always set the
action attribute.

So action is by default 'base' I assume!?

No idea what you mean by "base". As Rik said, there is no standard
default, and some but not necessarily all browsers use the current page
as the default.

[David Dorward]

Oliver Block wrote:

does anybody no, which the default action is (if no action attribute value
is assigned).

In that case the document is non-conformant and the default is handled
by browser error handling routines. The action attribute is
non-optional.

[Andy Dingley]

Oliver Block wrote:

does anybody no, which the default action is (if no action attribute value
is assigned).

Do you mean action or method?

For method, the default is GET (rather than POST)

For action (e.g. /CGI-BIN/process.cgi) then there is no default,
because a default would be almost meaningless. There are cases when a
<formis used purely with client-side DHTML and so an action isn't
particularly useful in that case, but these are rare. However the spec
still requires one, so set it to "#" if you really can't think of
anything else.

[David Dorward]

Andy Dingley wrote:

There are cases when a <formis used purely with client-side DHTML

Why use a form at all then? The spec don't require that input elements
be contained in such an element.

[Oliver Block]

Harlan Messinger wrote:

Oliver Block wrote:

>So action is by default 'base' I assume!?

No idea what you mean by "base". As Rik said, there is no standard
default, and some but not necessarily all browsers use the current page
as the default.

The base URI.

<http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#h-12.4.1>

oliver

--
Leben ist mehr als schneller - weiter - höher
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[Oliver Block]

David Dorward wrote:

Oliver Block wrote:

>does anybody no, which the default action is (if no action attribute
value is assigned).

In that case the document is non-conformant and the default is handled
by browser error handling routines. The action attribute is
non-optional.

That's right. I didn't consider that.

action %URI; #REQUIRED -- server-side form handler --

Oliver

--
Leben ist mehr als schneller - weiter - höher
<http://www.nak-nrw.de/p_6_4.html>

[Martin Honnen]

David Dorward wrote:

Andy Dingley wrote:

>>There are cases when a <formis used purely with client-side DHTML

Why use a form at all then? The spec don't require that input elements
be contained in such an element.

One reason is (or maybe was) Netscape 4 which does not render form
controls if they are not in form element.
And another reason is that scripting form controls contained in a form
element with stuff like this.form.elements or this.form.otherControlName
is flexible and works in more browsers than having to id any control and
use getElementById.
I only mention these as possible reasons to choose a form element
container, I am in no way suggesting that anyone should or has to.

--

Martin Honnen
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[John Dunlop]

Oliver Block:

does anybody no, which the default action is (if no action attribute value
is assigned).

I didn't find anything in the TR yet.

All you'd find there is that the value of the action attr. is a URL
('URI' in the spec, 'URI-reference' in RFC3986, call it what you like).

A string of length zero where a URL is expected is an empty relative
reference. RFC3986 is less explicit than its predecessor, but in
theory an empty FORM action is a reference to the base URL. In
practice, I don't think you'll find a browser that interprets it this
way, other than in the (usual) case where the base URL happens to have
been established from the Request-URI.

--
Jock