How to Determine Which Button Was Clicked in a PHP Form Submission?

Determining the Button Clicked in a PHP Form Submission

Understanding which button initiated a form submission is crucial in PHP web development. To address this, the HTML form must contain submit buttons with appropriate name attributes. For instance:

<input type="submit" name="btnSubmit" value="Save Changes" />
<input type="submit" name="btnDelete" value="Delete" />

PHP Code

To determine the clicked button, PHP code can be used:

if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
  // Form submission detected

  if (isset($_POST['btnDelete'])) {
    // btnDelete was clicked
  } else {
    // Assume btnSubmit was clicked
  }
}

Why Assume the First Button?

Assuming the first submit button was clicked ensures a reliable form submission detection experience for users. This is because browsers consistently send the name/value of the first button in the following scenarios:

• Direct click on the button
• Focus on the button followed by pressing Enter

Additional Considerations

• In forms with multiple submit buttons, it's necessary to explicitly test for buttons that appear later in the HTML.
• For forms submitted via GET (the default), a hidden input can be added to detect form submission (e.g., <input type=hidden name=submitted value=1>).
• This strategy has excellent browser support, ensuring compatibility with both old and new browsers.

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