Selenium Webdriver submit() vs click()

Question

Let's say I have an input in a form (looks like a button and interacts like a button) which generates some data (well, the server generates the data based on the form parameters, but for the user, the button does it :) )based on the parameters in the form.

When I use click(), the whole process hangs (it actually freezes, no exceptions or errors).

From the Selenium website:

// Now submit the form. WebDriver will find the form for us from the element
element.submit();

So WebDriver has a submit() method. Is there any difference, logic wise, between using a click() on a button or submit() ?

Answer 1

There is a difference between click() and submit().

submit() submits the form and executes the url that is given by the "action" attribute. If you have any javascript-function or jquery-plugin running to submit the form e.g. via ajax, submit() will ignore it. With click() the javascript-functions will be executed.