Forms

Web forms let a reader return information to a Web sever for some action. For example, suppose you collect names and email addresses so you can email some information to people who request it. For each person who enters his or her name and address, you need some information to be sent and the respondent's particulars added to a data base.

This processing of incoming data is usually handled by a script or program written in Pearl or another language that manipulates text, files, and information. If you cannot write a program or script for your incoming information you need to find someone who can do this for you, or learn for yourself how its done.

The forms themselves are not hard to code. They follow the same constructs as other HTML tags. What could be difficult is the program or script that takes the information submitted in a form and processes it. Because of the need for specialized scripts to handle the incoming form information, more about form scripts will not be discussed here.

There is an exception to scripting forms, at least for very simple forms. This involves using a mailto to send the information on the form to an e-mail address. Find out more about Mailto: Forms.