Understanding Forms - HTML

HTML forms simply place a handful of GUI controls on the user agent to allow the user to enter data. The controls can allow text input, allow selection of predefined choices from a list, radio or check boxes, or other standard GUI controls.

After the data is entered into the fields, a special control is used to pass the entered data on to a program that can do something useful with the data. Such programs are typically referred to as form handlers because they “handle” the form data.

The following code shows a basic HTML form whose output.

A simple HTML form.

Note: Many form tags do not have closing tags. However, XML and its variants require that all elements be closed. If you are coding for XML or one of its variants (such as XHTML), be sure to close your tags by including the closing slash (/) at the end of tags that lack a formal closing tag.