JavaScript code to stop form submission

Question

One way to stop form submission is to return false from your JavaScript function.

When the submit button is clicked, a validation function is called. I have a case in form validation. If that condition is met I call a function named returnToPreviousPage();

function returnToPreviousPage() {
    window.history.back();
}

I am using JavaScript and Dojo Toolkit.

Rather going back to the previous page, it submits the form. How can I abort this submission and return to the previous page?

Answer 1

You can use the return value of the function to prevent the form submission

<form name="myForm" onsubmit="return validateMyForm();"> 

and function like

<script type="text/javascript">
function validateMyForm()
{
  if(check if your conditions are not satisfying)
  { 
    alert("validation failed false");
    returnToPreviousPage();
    return false;
  }

  alert("validations passed");
  return true;
}
</script>

In case of Chrome 27.0.1453.116 m if above code does not work, please set the event handler's parameter's returnValue field to false to get it to work.

Thanks Sam for sharing information.

EDIT :

Thanks to Vikram for his workaround for if validateMyForm() returns false:

 <form onsubmit="event.preventDefault(); validateMyForm();">

where validateMyForm() is a function that returns false if validation fails. The key point is to use the name event. We cannot use for e.g. e.preventDefault()