Web Form Basics

- what it takes to make a web form work

Web forms really consist of two components. The form you see displayed when you view a web page and the form processing code that delivers the form inputs.

When you build a form using a html editor (or a text editor) you only end up with the first part, the displayed web form. This is the bit you see in your web browser. It won't actually do anything because it has no processing code. This topic is covered further in Web Form Code.

The processing code is commonly provided by a web host as a cgi (common gateway interface) script. This is is simply a file that is called by your web form when a form submit button is clicked.

Processing script is run on the server not the browser of the person viewing the form. Many web hosts and internet service providers give all their clients access to a single form processing script. This allows clients to direct their form (using the form action value set in the form) to the same single script when it is submitted. Using this method all processing data must be included in the form. Unfortunatly including your email address in the form code even as a hidden field can make your email address visible and susceptible to email address harvesting. This topic is covered further in Forms to Stop Spam and Viruses and Web Form Processing.

<<< ezyForm Home Page Form Code >>>