submitting form with two buttons

Question

I have 2 buttons in HTML form. And both of them should submit the form. I would need to capture which button has been clicked so i can use it to perform different actions based on which button was clicked.

I am able to submit the form with both the buttons but how would i capture which button was clicked in the php file .

<INPUT  type="button" name="submit" class="button" class="element_2" value="firstbutton">
<INPUT  type="button" name="submit1" class="button" class="element_2" value="second button.. ">

i am using post method in Jquery to submit the form. How can i check which HTML button was clicked in server side php script

Answer 1

You could try using the isset function

if(isset($_POST['submit'])){
echo "first button was clicked";
}

Or to detect the second one was clicked:

if(isset($_POST['submit1'])){
echo "second button.. was clicked";
}

Answer 2

You could use a hidden element here, something like this:

<input type="hidden" id="submittedBy" name="submittedBy">

Your current .submit() handler using .serialize() and $.post() should work, just update the hidden field when clicking either button, for example:

$("form :submit").click(function() {
  $("#submittedBy").val(this.name);
});

Then in PHP just check that $_POST["submittedBy"] == "submit" or "submit1" to see which caused it.

---

The alternative is to have the click handler POST and add in the value between .serializeArray() and when $.param() is called, like this:

$("form :submit").click(function() {
  var data = $(this.form).serializeArray();
  data.push({ name: 'submittedBy', value: this.name });
  $.post("myPage.php", data, function(result) {
    //do something
  });
  return false; //prevent normal form submission, even with the .submit() handler
});

Answer 3

I would capture all the events on the page using:

$(document).click(function (obj) {
    if ('equipmentSetup' === obj.target.id) {
        $('#form').submit();
    }

....

Then add an if statement looking for the "id" of the button you want. Don't use the name or id "submit". I forgot why but I remember it caused problem for me.

Answer 4

Just do this,

HTML

<button type="submit" name="action[update]" value="1">Update</button>
<button type="submit" name="action[delete]" value="1">Delete</button>

PHP

$action = isset($_POST['action']['update']) ? 'update' : 'delete';

You CAN'T depend on JavaScript to tell you wich button was clicked, if user has JavaScript disabled, your form is broken.

Answer 5

You could try changing the buttons to type="button" and give them ids. With that, you can use the jquery line (not able to check my syntax below, but think i've got it right)

$('form button').click(function(){
    if($(this).attr('id') = "button1"){ ...button 1 clicked}
    ..process form here..
});

would that do it?