[Webdev] Javascript onsubmit() driving me bonkers !

[Niall O Broin]

I've just wasted more than an hour trying to make an onsubmit handler work
properly. I could not stop the form submit from happening, despite my best
efforts. If the onsubmit handler returns false, the form should not be
submitted. It transpires that this is only correct for certain vales of
false ! For example:

Handler

onsubmit="return false"

Result

Form will not be submitted, as expected.

Handler

onsubmit="var do_sub=false; return do_sub"

Result

Form will not be submitted, as expected.

Handler

onsubmit="return form_check()"

where form_check is some function which is doing whatever checking we want.

Result

Form will always be submitted, no matter what form_check() returns.

Handler

onsubmit="var do_sub=form_check(); return do_sub"

Result

Form will always be submitted, no matter what form_check() returns.


This is all with Communicator 4.72[en] under Linux - didn't check with other
browsers - if the bug is there, I have to work around it.

The eventual solution was

Handler
 
onsubmit="if (form_check()) { return true } else { return false }"
 
Result
 
Form will be submitted or not, depending on what form_check() returns -
which is exactly what I want. Note that I did verify what form_check() was
returning by appropriate Alerts. 

Is this weird or what ? Who can I sue for my hour back :-)

Regards,


Niall  O Broin