CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmlformshtml-tabletablelayout
tutak
tutak

Reputation: 1098

Is it possible to wrap html form elements in multiple form tags?

Would it be wrong to have every element of a form wrapped in <form> tags in an HTML page? Am curious as to why it would be wrong:

Basically I have to introduce two forms(form1 and form2) and there are some elements associated with the first while others with the second.The layout has to be completely table based and since the elements of both forms are all over the page here is what i wrote(according to http://validator.w3.org/check, the code is valid):

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
 <html>
<head>
   <title>Title of the document</title>
 </head>

 <body>
<table border="1">
    <tr>
        <td>
            <form name="form1" method="POST" action="via.php">
            Enter the first form text here!:    <input type="text" name="first"/>
            </form>
        </td>
        <td rowspan="2">
            <form name="form2" method="POST" action="via.php">
                Enter the second form text here!:<input type="text" name="second"/>
            </form>

            <form name="form1" method="POST" action="via.php">
            Enter the first form text here!:<input type="text" name="first"/>
            </form>
        </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
        <td>
        <form name="form1" method="POST" action="via.php">
            <input type="submit" name="form1submit" value="submit1"/>
        </form>
        <form name="form12" method="POST" action="via.php">
            <input type="submit" name="form2submit" value="submit2"/>
        </form>
        </td>


  </tr>
</table>

Upvotes: 4

Views: 4772

Answers (2)

Rob W
Rob W

Reputation: 349042

Nested forms are not allowed, according to the specification:

Flow content, but with no form element descendants.

Given this input in the w3 validator:

<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title>tit</title></head><body>
<form action="x">
    <form action="x">
        <input type="submit" value="x"> <!-- Submitting.. Which form...?-->
    </form>
</form>    
</body></html>

The w3 validator says:

Saw a form start tag, but there was already an active form element. Nested forms are not allowed. Ignoring the tag.

Upvotes: 4

Jukka K. Korpela
Jukka K. Korpela

Reputation: 201588

The question appears to be “Can an HTML document contain several forms?” The correct answer is “Yes, as long as they are not nested.” The forms will be completely distinct, each with a set of fields of its own.

Upvotes: 2

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