Is it safe to use anchor to submit form?

html forms button anchor
Gregor Menih picture Gregor Menih · Nov 2, 2011 · Viewed 71.5k times · Source

I've read somewhere, that using anchor tag to submit a form isn't very safe, so that's my question: Is it safe, to use anchor tag instead of <button> or <input type="submit" /> to submit a form? And if it isn't, why? The problem is, that I have a CSS class for a button, that shows what I want on <a class="button">, but if I add it to an actual button it adds a weird border that I don't want.

Thanks

Answer

Cᴏʀʏ picture Cᴏʀʏ · Nov 2, 2011

To use an anchor to submit a form would require the use of JavaScript to hook up the events. It's not safe in that if a user has JavaScript disabled, you won't be able to submit the form. For example:

<form id="form1" action="" method="post">
    <a href="#" onclick="document.getElementById('form1').submit();">Submit!</a>
</form>

If you'd like you can use a <button>:

<button type="submit">Submit!</button>

Or stick with what we all know:

<input type="submit" value="Submit!" />

You can style all three of them, but the latter two don't require JavaScript. You probably just need to change some CSS somewhere if you're having border issues.

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