Two Submit Buttons on Form?

lch_hosting

I am creating an order form and I was wondering if I have two buttons (for two different payment types)... Depending upon which one they click I want it to re-direct them to a different link and preform different queries, how can I do that using only one form and two buttons within that one form?

Mark_P_W

You can't have two submit buttons in one form. (EDIT: Forget I said that!)
You would be best to either make two different pages for each payment type or if you want to use one page for the form, give the user a choice of payment type before they enter the form and attach different variables to the choice of links.

e.g:
Payment link one...
"...form.php?paytype=paymethod1"
for the first choice of payment

Payment link two...
"...form.php?paytype=paymethod2"
for second choice of payment

Inside the form page (form.php) you would work out which method has been used with $paytype and give the URL's for each payment method in the $formaction variable to add to your forms action variable.

Something like...
<?php
if($paytype==paymethod1){$formaction="paymentprocess1.php"}
elseif($paytype==paymethod2){$formaction="paymentprocess2.php"}
else{print"you have not selected a payment method";}

In your form you would put...
<form action=\"$formaction\" method=\"post\"> ...?>

Sorry if this doesn't answer your question, but I think it's probably the best method 🙂

MrAlaska

I do this often. You could either name the buttons different, or name them each 'submit' (or whatever) then base a switch statement on the value:

<?php
$submit=$HTTP_POST_VARS['submit'];

switch($submit){
    case 'MasterCharge':
    	include 'mastercharge.php';
	break;
    case 'Visa':
    	include 'visa.php';
	break;
    default:
    	include 'nothing.php';
}
?>

the_Igel

Or you can use BUTTONs instead of SUBMITs. I think, it's a little more "legal", than to put two submits in a form. Worth to check html specs though.

Or you can use radio/checkboxes to select submission type for the form.

Bunkermaster

http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10209480

another possible answer ^

Phpdiot

Originally posted by Mark.P.W
You can't have two submit buttons in one form.
You would be best to either make two different pages for each payment type or if you want to use one page for the form, give the user a choice of payment type before they enter the form and
Something like...

Don't agree. Try this.


<?php
if ( $_POST['action'] == "Button One" )
{
   echo "Button One was clicked";
}
elseif ( $_POST['action'] == "Button Two" )
{
   echo "Button Two was clicked";
}

?>
<form action="<?=$PHP_SELF?>" method="POST">
<input type="Submit" name="action" value="Button One">
<input type="Submit" name="action" value="Button Two">
</form>

MrAlaska

Their is nothing 'illegal' about putting multiple inputs on a form, whether they are of type 'submit' or not. Hell, would Google do something illegal? This link is not from the actual specs, but the author of the site does stick to the specs and this page is a lot easier to read:

SUBMIT is a TYPE attribute value to the INPUT element for FORMs. It specifies a button that, when activated, submits the information entered to a processing script. If there are multiple SUBMIT buttons in a form, only the one activated should be sent to the form processing script.

http://blooberry.com/indexdot/html/tagpages/i/inputsubmit.htm

Using a button or image (or putting an image inside a button) with a javascript submit is fine and fun, but if you want to insure page usability across the board you are much better sticking to basic HTML, which means multiple submit inputs (or other input types).

EDIT: Ok, I take back my comment asking whether Google would do something illegal, apparently they do not stick to the specs as well as they could:
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=%28detect+automatically%29
Regardless, though, if their two submit buttons on their front page form were causing any problems for anybody I think one of them would have disappeared long ago.

EDIT AGAIN: Because I am a glutton for punishment, I waded through the actual specs:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#submit-button

submit buttons: When activated, a submit button submits a form. A form may contain more than one submit button.

philsown

You can have multiple submit buttons on a form, just give them all the same name. If a submit button has no name, it's not passed to the action script. One caveat: On many visual browsers, the button has to actually be clicked with the mouse; you can't just click the "return" key or neither submit button is passed.

Bunkermaster

/me kicks his WebTV around with a large trout 😉

MrAlaska

Originally posted by philsown
You can have multiple submit buttons on a form, just give them all the same name. If a submit button has no name, it's not passed to the action script.

Naming your buttons certainly makes sense for enabling getting a handle on them, but there is no real need to name them the same. I happen to find giving them the same names simpler, but some applications find it makes sense to name them different. Google, for instance.

One caveat: On many visual browsers, the button has to actually be clicked with the mouse; you can't just click the "return" key or neither submit button is passed.

That is a good point to mention regarding using multiple submit buttons, the only reliable behavior is to click on the chosen button. Using IE I have found that the button that gets passed is the one either prior or closest to the area having focus when the user hits 'return', apparently even if the button is on another form! To minimize unpredictable behavior I try to put the submit button just previous to the area likely to have focus for the action corresponding with it, but it is still something that needs to be kept in mind on the validation script, and something you need to play with when test driving the application.

valen53

create 2 form in one page, a form for a button, so u can post 2 different data to diffrent page.

Phpdiot

create 2 form in one page, a form for a button, so u can post 2 different data to diffrent page.

A form for a button?!? If you mean nested form, it's better to avoid this technique.

Donald_King

This thread almost got to my problem -

I want to put 2 (unnested) forms on one page because I need to get an answer from a drop-down on the first form before I can ask the 2nd question - kind of like a tree root. I could do this with 2 pages, but it hardly justifies using 2 pages for so little data. Also, some members will arrive at the page with the 1st answer predefined and I can bypass displaying the first form for these people.

My problem is "how to get from a submit of the 1st form - to the 2nd form".

I have tried action="<?= $PHP_SELF ?>" and action="". But both seem to return to the top of the submitted form and reset the values to their original values. I am not able to get from the 1st form to the second form.

An alternative approach would be to use one form which would allow me to access the 1st answer (a drop-down) in order to set-up the appropriate drop-down for the 2nd question - this would be the preferable approach.

Both drop-downs are loaded with data from the member's db tables.

THANKS for any advice.

MrAlaska

I am not sure how you are passing the 'predefined info' but to populate the second form with information from the first form using PHP you need to submit it to the form. You can do it on one PHP page using if statements:

if (no form submitted AND no predefined info exists)
..display form one
elseif (form one is submitted OR predefined info exists)
..process form one or gather predefined data
..display form two based on submitted data
elseif (form two is submitted)
..process form two

The above structure is simplified, you would probably structure it quite a bit differently for error trapping and to re-display an improperly entered form, but it should give you a general idea.

To do it all dynamically on one page and one submission you would need to use client side scripting, but the wisdom of relying on client side scripts for site functionality is questionable in most cases.

Donald_King

THANKS For your very prompt response. I will work on it tonight.

Some background:
Most members have only one "root system", therefore (except for new, additional systems), I know which of their "root systems" they want to update. Thus - the "predefined information" from their personal db tables.

The question, therefore, dealt with the remaining members and identifying which of their "root systems" (form 1) they wanted to work on and then (form 2) selecting the data from their tables that they want to update. All members will go through form 2.

THANKS again!

MrAlaska

There might be a logic error in my simplified solution, depending on how you are gathering the predefined info it might show form two regardless with the ifelse structure

elseif (form one is submitted OR (predefined info exists && form two not submitted) )

Your final structure will probably have its own personality, anyway, though.

Good luck 🙂

Donald_King

THANKS for your followup.

Your suggestion is basically what I have been trying. Actually, my question is more of an HTML question - what to put in the ACTION atribute with the FORM tag. I have tried $PHP_SELF and spaces, but both appear to start at the top of form one again.

THANKS!!

MrAlaska

Since it is a self posting form, you could leave the action attribute blank or insert PHP_SELF. If it is displaying form one again, then you have a logic error.

Form one should only be displayed of no form was submitted and no user info exists, so if you were following my example

if (no form submitted AND no predefined info exists)

to be more exact it would mean explicitly checking for each form

if (not form one && not form two && no predefined info)

So if any form was submitted, form one cannot be displayed.

Bear in mind, the structure I showed you was the simplest way to explain the process, but is not the way I would actually build it. That structure will work, but will get tricky doing error trapping if you need to re-display improperly filled out forms. If I were actually building it, I would probably process the forms before I displayed anything, then initialize flags to determine what to display after the processing is done.