Comments on: A little HTML test

By: Rajnesh Sharma

Rajnesh Sharma — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 10:43:55 +0000

The HTML specifications technically define the difference between “GET” and … If the form data would contain non-ASCII characters, then METHOD=”GET” is correct other METHOD=”GET” is not working properly. In METHOD=”GET” send only upto 2KB (2048) characters

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 22:36:31 +0000

I actually ran into this exact issue and thus found this article when searching for a solution. The form we had did not have a method applied, and thus was defaulting to “GET”. I switched it to “POST” and the form works fine now.

By: Bill Mill

Bill Mill — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000

The form lacks a name or a method; how is it to be submitted (GET or POST)? What is it to be called by?

By: Aurelien

Aurelien — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000

Hi sil,

I think that the problem come from the form.

As you don’t specifie the method, it will be “GET” by default.

The problem is that IE could not take more than 2043 characters on a “GET” method, fyi : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q208427/

So I think this is why the form could not be submit.

By: Aurelien

Aurelien — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000

Actually, this is not the only reason of the non-submitting form.

As defined by the WC3, the form submitting process is in 4 step :

Step one: Identify the successful controls
Step two: Build a form data set
Step three: Encode the form data set
Step four: Submit the encoded form data set

Most interesting is the first step : Identify the successful controls :
A successful control is “valid” for submission. Every successful control has its control name paired with its current value as part of the submitted form data set. A successful control must be defined within a FORM element and must have a control name.

Actually, this would not solve the problem because, we will still have the 2043 character limit with IE.

By: Millennium

Millennium — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000

You haven’t provided an action for the form either. Where would the data be submitted?

By: Rory Parle

Rory Parle — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000

The default action for a form is the current page, yes? And the default method is GET? So it doesn’t matter that the form has neither of these attributes. The character limit doesn’t apply because the textboxes aren’t successful.

So you’re left with a form submitting no data, with GET, to the current URL. We expect that to behave the same as clicking a link to the current page. Would I be right in guessing that IE doesn’t reload the page in that case either? Basically, the result of the form submission is cached, so it doesn’t submit.

By: Graumeister

Graumeister — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000

I would say, the two textareas are not to be kept apart, because they both have no name. So IE tries to be neat to the user and dont send trash. With the post and get-issue I think there is a default? That should not be the problem.

By: Richard Rutter

Richard Rutter — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000

There are two things that are stopping IE submitting the form.

The first is the lack of names for the textareas. All form controls (except submit buttons) require a name or id. Note that Aurelien was wrong when he said the form element itself requires naming as well.

The second issue is the length of the generated URL. The form will be submitted as a GET by default (the method attribute is not required) and the URL generated would exceed the 2048 character limit set by Internet Explorer. From Boutell :

Although the specification of the HTTP protocol does not specify any maximum length, the practical limit is 2,083 characters, with no more than 2,048 characters in the path portion of the URL. These are the restrictions currently enforced by Microsoft Interet Explorer.

The missing ACTION, which is a required attribute of form, is not actually a factor preventing IE from submitting the form.

By: sil

sil — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000

Aurelien gets the pont for getting it right first, and Mr Rutter gets a bonus point for explaiing in more detail. (The missing names on the textareas were there in my test case; I forgot to add them to the test above). It took me Some Time to work out why it wasn’t working :)