Is there a better jQuery solution to this.form.sub

Question

I want to trigger the submit event of the form the current element is in. A method I know works sometimes is:

this.form.submit();

I'm wondering if there is a better solution, possibly using jQuery, as I'm not 100% sure method works in every browser.

Edit:

The situation I have is, as follows:

<form method="get">
    <p><label>Field Label
        <select onchange="this.form.submit();">
            <option value="blah">Blah</option>
            ....
        </select></label>
    </p>
</form>

I want to be able to submit the form on change of the <select>.

What I'm looking for is a solution that works on any field within any form without knowing the id or name on the form. $('form:first') and $('form') won't work because the form could be the third on the page. Also, I am using jQuery on the site already, so using a bit of jQuery is not a big deal.

So, is there a way to have jQuery retrieve the form the input/select/textarea is in?

Answer 1

I have found that using jQuery the best solution is

$(this.form).submit()

Using this statement jquery plugins (e.g. jquery form plugin) works correctly and jquery DOM traversing overhead is minimized.

Answer 2

Your question in somewhat confusing in that that you don't explain what you mean by "current element".

If you have multiple forms on a page with all kinds of input elements and a button of type "submit", then hitting "enter" upon filling any of it's fields will trigger submission of that form. You don't need any Javascript there.

But if you have multiple "submit" buttons on a form and no other inputs (e.g. "edit row" and/or "delete row" buttons in table), then the line you posted could be the way to do it.

Another way (no Javascript needed) could be to give different values to all your buttons (that are of type "submit"). Like this:

<form action="...">
    <input type="hidden" name="rowId" value="...">
    <button type="submit" name="myaction" value="edit">Edit</button>
    <button type="submit" name="myaction" value="delete">Delete</button>
</form>

When you click a button only the form containing the button will be submitted, and only the value of the button you hit will be sent (along other input values).

Then on the server you just read the value of the variable "myaction" and decide what to do.

Answer 3

<form method="get">
   <p><label>Field Label
      <select onchange="this.form.submit();">
         <option value="blah">Blah</option>
            ....
     </select>
     </label>
   </p>
    **<!-- <input name="submit" type="submit" /> // name="submit_new_name" -->**
  </form>

<!-- 

   this.form.submit == this.form.elements['submit'];

-->

Answer 4

this.form.submit();

This is probably your best bet. Especially if you are not already using jQuery in your project, there is no need to add it (or any other JS library) just for this purpose.

Answer 5

You can always JQuery-ize your form.submit, but it may just call the same thing:

$("form").submit(); // probably able to affect multiple forms (good or bad)

// or you can address it by ID
$("#yourFormId").submit();

You can also attach functions to the submit event, but that is a different concept.

Answer 6

In JQuery you can call

$("form:first").trigger("submit")

Don't know if that is much better. I think form.submit(); is pretty universal.