How can I submit a form with an anchor tag

[JnrJnr]

This might seem like a Javascript question but I can already submit the form with an anchor tag via javascript. Thats fine.
My actual question is how does PHP incorporate itself in the form post of an anchor tag?
Usually if you use a submit button you would use the $Post or $Get array with an isset() method to tell the form what to do or post. How do I tell the form what to do after an anchor tag post?
Anchor tag post:

<a href="javascript:document.MainForm.submit()" onclick="return validate()" name="submit"><img src="buttons/Submit.png" border=0 alt="Submit"></a>

help would really be appreciated

[Dormilich]

the anchor tag does not play a role here as it is simply used to trigger the form to submit (via JavaScript). what values to send to the server is (like in the case of a submit button) solely handled by the browser.

PHP doesn’t even know that the form was submitted through an anchor tag. it gets regular form data. PHP can’t even differentiate between a form submission and AJAX.

though in your case, I wouldn’t even bother with an anchor. either put the handlers on the image or use a <button> element.

[JnrJnr]

thanx for the reply. I used an image before to submit but then tried anchor tags because the image tag onclick event does not seem to fire.

This probably is crazy but what Im trying to do is create two submit buttons on one form.
Both buttons use javascript for mouseovers etc.
I need javascript to do some validation first and also to tell me which button was clicked/submitted so that I can use the appropriate isset($Post_) method. Is it normal to use two submit buttons?
Any suggestions?

[Dormilich]

that depends on what you consider normal. if you have a reason to use different buttons, why not? the disadvantage is, that some versions of IE do not submit the name of the submit button (i.e. you don’t know which button was pressed).

[JnrJnr]

Ok fine. Let me get back to topic. Could you give me a code example of how form data is sent to the server via a submit action using an anchor tag please?

Take a look here: http://webdeveloper.internet.com/for...d.php?t=126792
(this is exactly what I want to do except that onclick event does not work with HTML input type image)

[Dormilich]

provided, JavaScript is enabled:

<a id="submitter">Submit</a>

#submitter {
    cursor: pointer;
}

function submit_form()
{
    document.myForm.submit();
}
document.getElementById("submitter").addEventListener("click", submit_form, false);