HTML: Is it possible to have a FORM tag in each TABLE ROW in a XHTML valid way?

Question

I can best describe this as follows:

I want this (entire table in editmode and save button in every row).

<table>
    <tr>
        <td>Id</td>
        <td>Name</td>
        <td>Description</td>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td><input type="hidden" name="id" value="1" /></td>
        <td><input type="text" name="name" value="Name" /></td>
        <td><input type="text" name="description" value="Description" /></td>
        <td><input type="submit" value="Save" /></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td><input type="hidden" name="id" value="2" /></td>
        <td><input type="text" name="name" value="Name2" /></td>
        <td><input type="text" name="description" value="Description2" /></td>
        <td><input type="submit" value="Save" /></td>
    </tr>
    <!-- and more rows here ... -->
</table>

Where should I put the <form> tags?

Answer 1

It's worth mentioning that this is possible in HTML5, using the "form" attribute for input elements:

<table>
    <tr>
        <td>Id</td>
        <td>Name</td>
        <td>Description</td>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td><form id="form1"><input type="hidden" name="id" value="1" /></form></td>
        <td><input form="form1" type="text" name="name" value="Name" /></td>
        <td><input form="form1" type="text" name="description" value="Description" /></td>
        <td><input form="form1" type="submit" value="Save" /></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td><form id="form2"><input type="hidden" name="id" value="1" /></form></td>
        <td><input form="form2" type="text" name="name" value="Name" /></td>
        <td><input form="form2" type="text" name="description" value="Description" /></td>
        <td><input form="form2" type="submit" value="Save" /></td>
    </tr>
</table>

While clean in its lack of JS and use of original elements, unfortunately this isn't working in IE10.

Answer 2

I had a similar question and this answer in question HTML: table of forms? solved it for me. (Not sure if it is XHTML, but it works in an HTML5 browser.)

You can use css to give table layout to other elements.

.table { display: table; } 
.table>* { display: table-row; }
.table>*>* { display: table-cell; }

Then you use the following valid html.

<div class="table"> 
    <form>
        <div>snake<input type="hidden" name="cartitem" value="55"></div>
        <div><input name="count" value="4" /></div>
    </form>
</div>

Answer 3

You can't. Your only option is to divide this into multiple tables and put the form tag outside of it. You could end up nesting your tables, but this is not recommended:

<table>
  <tr><td><form>
    <table><tr><td>id</td><td>name</td>...</tr></table>
  </form></td></tr>
</table>

I would remove the tables entirely and replace it with styled html elements like divs and spans.

Answer 4

I wrote the below over ten years ago, when the world was a different place. These days I know of many ways to crack this particular nut, but a quick and dirty solution that will validate is to do much the same but use CSS tables for layout, not a regular HTML table.

I'd say you can, although it doesn't validate and Firefox will re-arrange the code (so what you see in 'View generated source' when using Web Developer may well surprise). I'm no expert, but putting

<form action="someexecpage.php" method="post">

just ahead of the

<tr>

and then using

</tr></form>

at the end of the row certainly gives the functionality (tested in Firefox, Chrome and IE7-9). Working for me, even if the number of validation errors it produced was a new personal best/worst! No problems seen as a consequence, and I have a fairly heavily styled table. I guess you may have a dynamically produced table, as I do, which is why parsing the table rows is a bit non-obvious for us mortals. So basically, open the form at the beginning of the row and close it just after the end of the row.

Answer 5

The answer of @wmantly is basicly 'the same' as I would go for at this moment. Don't use <form> tags at all and prevent 'inappropiate' tag nesting. Use javascript (in this case jQuery) to do the posting of the data, mostly you will do it with javascript, because only one row had to be updated and feedback must be given without refreshing the whole page (if refreshing the whole page, it's no use to go through all these trobules to only post a single row).

I attach a click handler to a 'update' anchor at each row, that will trigger the collection and 'submit' of the fields on the same row. With an optional data-action attribute on the anchor tag the target url of the POST can be specified.

Example html

<table>
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td><input type="hidden" name="id" value="row1"/><input name="textfield" type="text" value="input1" /></td>
            <td><select name="selectfield">
                <option selected value="select1-option1">select1-option1</option>
                <option value="select1-option2">select1-option2</option>
                <option value="select1-option3">select1-option3</option>
            </select></td>
            <td><a class="submit" href="#" data-action="/exampleurl">Update</a></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td><input type="hidden" name="id" value="row2"/><input name="textfield" type="text" value="input2" /></td>
            <td><select name="selectfield">
                <option selected value="select2-option1">select2-option1</option>
                <option value="select2-option2">select2-option2</option>
                <option value="select2-option3">select2-option3</option>
            </select></td>
            <td><a class="submit" href="#" data-action="/different-url">Update</a></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td><input type="hidden" name="id" value="row3"/><input name="textfield" type="text" value="input3" /></td>
            <td><select name="selectfield">
                <option selected value="select3-option1">select3-option1</option>
                <option value="select3-option2">select3-option2</option>
                <option value="select3-option3">select3-option3</option>
            </select></td>
            <td><a class="submit" href="#">Update</a></td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

Example script

    $(document).ready(function(){
        $(".submit").on("click", function(event){
            event.preventDefault();
            var url = ($(this).data("action") === "undefined" ? "/" : $(this).data("action"));
            var row = $(this).parents("tr").first();
            var data = row.find("input, select, radio").serialize();
            $.post(url, data, function(result){ console.log(result); });
        });
    });

A JSFIddle

Answer 6

You just have to put the <form ... > tag before the <table> tag and the </form> at the end.

Hopte it helps.