Form submission

[vchris]

There's something I don't understand about this issue.I have a form on header_e.cfm

<form action="search_e.cfm" method="post" name="searchText">Search RET Documents<br /><input type="text" name="keywords" size="30" /> <input type="submit" value="Search" name="Operation1" onclick="return validateSearchText();" /><br /><input type="radio" name="cri" value="or" checked="checked" />Any Match<input type="radio" name="cri" value="and" />Exact Match</form>

As you can see it is submitted to search_e.cfm. On search_e.cfm I search the db for the search string. The problem if I'm on main_e.cfm and do the search in the header, the search page will not get the "keywords" string. When I print the value of form.keywords I get blank. If I do my search in the header of search_e.cfm I get the correct results and the search string is printed out with form.keywords.

...<cfset kwords= ReplaceNoCase(keywords, " ", "%,%", "ALL")><cfset kwords= "%" & kwords & "%"><cfoutput>kwords: #kwords#<br />form.keywords: #form.keywords#<br />form.cri: #form.cri#<br />form.submit: #form.operation1#</cfoutput>...

[Skemcin]

Sorry its been a week since your post.have you resolved the issue?have you tried use the "get" method and using url.kwords versus form.kwords?Otherwise, I am not sure I complete understand the issue. Is header_e.cfm an include file throughout your site like on main_e.cfm?

[vchris]

It's not actually my site, I am just trying to fix some issues. I'll try the get method and url.kwords instead. I'll let you know how it goes.EDIT: Yes header_e.cfm is an include file on all pages. I forgot to mention 1 thing, when I print out the values of my form when submitting from the header_e.cfm (only when different than search_e.cfm) I get the cri value and submit value but not the keywords value. So some of the form data is being sent except for that keyords field. I have checked many times the field names.I just tried with get and url and still the same problem.

[vchris]

RESOLVEDThe error was in the javascript that the previous programmer programmed. He had:

function validateSearchText() {			if (document.searchText.keywords.value == "") {				alert("Please enter a search string");				return false;			}			document.searchText.submit();			document.searchText.keywords.value = "";			return true;		}

document.searchText.keywords.value = ""; erased the field before the data was sent. I commented that line out and works fine!

[Skemcin]

sweet - I know there are good reasons for using javascript for form submission (client side validation) but with the last site I took over I had tons of these issues. Just another place to track a problem that you don't think of first. This is why I use CFMX7 Flash Forms when possible.:)Glad you found the error, and resolved it.

[aspnetguy]

I hear you, I rarely use JS for form validation anymore. I usually process the form on the same page and just postback error messages as html. I find it is much nicer.

[vchris]

Same here with validation without JS. It's a lot more secure validating server side and you don't have those annoying pop-ups. I'm not crazy about JS also...