Jquery Course

Validate Form

Before submit a form to a server script, it is indicated to perform some minimal validations on the client side, like the number of characters in a field and the correct form of an e-mail address.


In the next example we use jQuery to validate the following form (two text input fields, two radio buttons, a select list, and a textarea). 
<form action="script.php" method="post">
 Name: <input type="text" name="name" id="name" /><br />
 E-mail: <input type="text" name="email" id="email" /><br />
 <span id="gen">
  Gender: <input type="radio" name="gen" value="man" />Man
  <input type="radio" name="gen" value="woman" />Woman
 </span><br />
 Age, between: <select name="age" id="age">
  <option>..select..</option>
  <option value="5-10">5-10</option>
  <option value="11-18">11-18</option>
  <option value="19-30">19-30</option>
  <option value="31-50">31-50</option>
  <option value="51-70">51-70</option>
  <option value="71+">71+</option>
 </select><br />
 Message:<br />
 <textarea name="msg" id="msg" rows="4" cols="33"></textarea><br />
 <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

Now we write a jQuery code that detects when the user attempts to submit the form. We check if the "name" field has at least two characters, if the e-mail address has the correct form, if a radio button is checked and a select options is selected, and if the textarea has at least 5 characters.
If all the form elements are correctly filled, submits the form, else, adds a CSS class="error" to the invalid elements, and returns an Alert with a message.
The "error" class is defined in a CSS style to add a red border.
- Below there is a demo with this form.
This is the jQuery code to validate the form above: 
<style type="text/css"><!--
.error { border:2px solid red; }
--></style>
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery_1.6.1.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
$(document).ready(function() {
  // when a form is submited, get its data and validate the fields
  $('form').submit(function() {
    // gets field values
    var name = $(this).find('input[name="name"]');          // Name
    var email = $(this).find('input[name="email"]');        // E-mail
    var gen = $(this).find(':radio:checked');                         // Gender
    var age = $(this).find('select[name="age"]');           // Age
    var msg = $(this).find('#msg');                                   // Message

    // remove class "error" from al elements
    // sets a variable "error" used to deermine if submit or no the form
    $('*').removeClass('error');
    var error = 0;
    var regx = /^([a-z0-9_\-\.])+\@([a-z0-9_\-\.])+\.([a-z]{2,4})$/i;   // regexp for e-mail

          /* Validate the fields (adds class "error" to invalid fields and set error=1) */
    // check "name"
    if(name.val().length<2){
      name.addClass('error');
      error = 1;
    }
    // check "email"
    if(!regx.test(email.val())){
      email.addClass('error');
      error = 1;
    }
    // check radio input "gen", if undefined (not checked),
    // add class "error" to element that includes radio inputs
    if(gen.val()==undefined){
      $('#gen').addClass('error');
      error = 1;
    }
    // check "age", if no selected (value of <select> is the value of first <option>, initially displayed)
    if(age.val()==age.find('option:first').val()){
      age.addClass('error');
      error = 1;
    }
    // check "msg"
    if(msg.val().length<5){
      msg.addClass('error');
      error = 1;
    }

    // if error is 0, submit the form
    // else alerts a message and blocks the submission by returning false
    if(error==0) {
      $(tihs).submit();
    }
    else {
      alert('Please fill all fields with red border');
      return false;      // necesary to not submit the form
    }
  });
});
--></script>

- The val() function returns the value of a form field.
- $(this).find('input[name="name"]') - returns the input element with name="name" in the current object.
- $(this).find(':radio:checked') - returns the checked radio item(s) in the current object.
- $(this).find('select[name="age"]') - returns the <select> element with name="age" in the current object.
- $(this).find('#msg') - gets the element with id="msg" in the current object.

Submit the form via Ajax

To submit form data via Ajax to a server script, you must add the "name=value" pairs of the form fields in a string, separated by "&". This can be easily accomplished with jQuery serialize() method.
The serialize() method encodes a set of form elements as a string for submission.
After we validate the form, if there is no errors, we can apply this method and submit form data.

Hesre's a complete example. Validate the form created above and submit it with jQuery ajax to a PHP script ("script.php" file), then include the response of the script into a <div> on the page (For details, see the comments in code).
- The response from PHP contains a HTML code with form data submited. 
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<title>jQuery Validate Submit</title>
<style type="text/css"><!--
.error { border:2px solid red; }
--></style>
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery_1.6.1.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
$(document).ready(function() {
  // when a form is submited, get its data and validate the fields
  $('form').submit(function() {
    // gets field values
    var name = $(this).find('input[name="name"]');          // Name
    var email = $(this).find('input[name="email"]');        // E-mail
    var gen = $(this).find(':radio:checked');               // Gender
    var age = $(this).find('select[name="age"]');           // Age
    var msg = $(this).find('#msg');                         // Message

    // remove class "error" from al elements
    // sets a variable "error" used to submit or no the form
    $('*').removeClass('error');
    var error = 0;
    var regx = /^([a-z0-9_\-\.])+\@([a-z0-9_\-\.])+\.([a-z]{2,4})$/i;   // regexp for e-mail

          /* Validate the fields (adds class "error" to invalid fields and set error=1) */
    // check "name"
    if(name.val().length<2){
      name.addClass('error');
      error = 1;
    }
    // check "email"
    if(!regx.test(email.val())){
      email.addClass('error');
      error = 1;
    }
    // check radio input "gen", if undefined (not checked),
    // add class "error" to element that includes radio inputs
    if(gen.val()==undefined){
      $('#gen').addClass('error');
      error = 1;
    }
    // check "age", if no selected (value of <select> is the value of first <option>, initially displayed)
    if(age.val()==age.find('option:first').val()){
      age.addClass('error');
      error = 1;
    }
    // check "msg"
    if(msg.val().length<5){
      msg.addClass('error');
      error = 1;
    }

    // if error is 0, serialize form data and send the data string to server
    // else alert a message
    if(error==0) {
      var srl = $(this).serialize();

      $.ajax({
        type: 'post',
        url: 'script.php',
        data: srl,
        beforeSend: function() {
          // before send the request, displays a "Loading..." messaj in the element where the response will be placed
          $('#resp').html('Loading...');
        },
        timeout: 10000,        // sets timeout for the request (10 seconds)
        error: function(xhr, status, error) { alert('Error: '+ xhr.status+ ' - '+ error); },     // alert a message in case of error
        success: function(response) {
          $('#resp').html(response);
        }
      });
    }
    else { alert('Please fill all fields with red border'); }

    return false;      // necesary to not open the page when form is submited
  });
});
--></script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="resp">Here will be displayed the response from server.</div>
<h4>Fill the form and submit data</h4>
<form action="script.php" method="post">
 Name: <input type="text" name="name" id="name" /><br />
 E-mail: <input type="text" name="email" id="email" /><br />
 <span id="gen">
  Gender: <input type="radio" name="gen" value="man" />Man
  <input type="radio" name="gen" value="woman" />Woman
 </span><br />
 Age, between: <select name="age" id="age">
  <option>..select..</option>
  <option value="5-10">5-10</option>
  <option value="11-18">11-18</option>
  <option value="19-30">19-30</option>
  <option value="31-50">31-50</option>
  <option value="51-70">51-70</option>
  <option value="71+">71+</option>
 </select><br />
 Message:<br />
 <textarea name="msg" id="msg" rows="4" cols="33"></textarea><br />
 <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
Demo:
Here will be displayed the response from server.

Name:
E-mail:
Gender: Man Woman
Age, between:
Message:

Daily Test with Code Example

HTML
CSS
JavaScript
PHP-MySQL
Which tag is used to include external CSS file in web page?
<body> <script> <link>
<link href="/templ/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
Which CSS property sets the text size?
font-weight text-decoration font-size
h2 {
  font-size: 1em;
}
Indicate the JavaScript property that can add HTML code into an element.
text value innerHTML
document.getElementById("someID").innerHTML = "HTML content";
Click on the function that returns the number of characters of a string in PHP.
count() strlen() stristr()
$str = "http://CoursesWeb.net/";
$nr_chr = strlen($str);
echo $nr_chr;       // 22
Validate and Submit Form

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