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Generally, a form is a collection of different types of fields to take the input from the user on
a web page. It replaces the paper-based forms used earlier. Nowadays, we notice that most
schools, universities, and other commercial organisations use online forms to submit or accept
information. Different types of fields, such as text boxes, checkboxes, radio buttons, drop-down
menus, and passwords, are used to accept different types of information.
HTML provides two main tags, which are <FORM> and <INPUT> to handle the forms on the web
page. Let us learn about these in detail.
The <FORM> Tag
The <FORM> tag is used to create the form boundary on the web page. It is a container tag. All
the other form related tags, such as <INPUT>, <SELECT> and <TEXTAREA> are used inside the
opening <FORM> and closing </FORM> tags. The syntax for using the <FORM> tag is as follows:
<FORM> Form Elements </FORM>
The <FORM> tag has three main attributes, which are:
• ACTION: This attribute is used to specify the action that will take place when we submit
the form values. It takes the URL of another web page or an e-mail address to receive the
information.
• METHOD: It specifies the type of method the form will use to accept the values entered into
form fields. The most commonly used values for this attribute are POST and GET.
• ENCTYPE: It specifies that how a browser decodes the data before submitting to the server. It
takes any one value from the following values:
◦ application/x-www-form-urlencoded: It is the standard method used in filling the most
forms. All characters are encoded before submitting the form.
◦ multipart/form-data: It is used when you have something to upload like files of images,
documents, etc. It does not encode any character.
The <INPUT> Tag
The <INPUT> tag is one of the most important form elements. It is used to create controls or
fields to take input from the user in the form of text, selection, and click. The <INPUT> tag has
the following attributes:
• TYPE: This attribute is used to specify the type of field we want to create. It takes one of the
predefined values. The predefined values for this attribute are:
◦ TEXT: This value is used to create a text box field. A text box field is a one-line text input
control. The text is the default value of the TYPE attribute.
◦ RADIO: This value is used to create a radio button control. A radio button control is used
to select only one option from a set of options.
◦ CHECKBOX: This value is used to create a check box control. A check box control allows us
to select multiple options from a set of options.
◦ BUTTON: This value is used to create an action button control. An action button control is
used to perform an action on the click of it.
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