html button v.s. html submit?

Question

I have an input text box and a search submit button, and when user clicks the Search submit button, I want to redirect user to url http://testsearch/results.aspx?k=<value of text box k>, for example, if user put "StackOverflow" into text box and then clicks the search button, I want to redirect user to the following page,

http://testsearch/results.aspx?k=StackOverflow

I find when I use button for Search button, it works (see below source codes),

  <input type="text" id="k" name="k" />
  <input type="button" id="Go" value="Search" onclick="location.href = 'http://somemachine/Search/results.aspx?k='+document.getElementById('k').value;"/>

but when I use submit for Search button, it does not works (see below source codes), why?

  <input type="text" id="k" name="k" />
 <input type="submit" id="Go" value="Search" onclick="location.href = 'http://somemachine/Search/results.aspx?k='+document.getElementById('k').value;"/>

thanks in advance, George

Answer 1

You can even use the submit button this way:

 <input type="submit" id="Go" value="Search" onclick="document.location='http://testsearch/results.aspx?k=StackOverflow'; return false;" />

Semantically submit button is used to submit forms not redirect pages. You should use normal button type for this. However as i showed you can use the submit button too but that is not semantic i think.

The below line prevents the form from being submitted.

return false;

That is what you are missing in your code :)

Thanks