Re: Submitting input-form data to server

Tony Johnson (TONYJ@scs.slac.stanford.edu)
Sun, 05 Sep 1993 13:31:48 -0700 (PDT)

Marc writes:
>Pei Y. Wei writes:
>> * What syntax do we choose for marking up a property list? SGML or MIME?
>
>How 'bout neither? Furms submit queries; why not stick with the
>current query syntax? That is, 'url?query' ... with 'query' looking
>something like:
>
> name=value&name=value&name=value
>
>...with the '=' and '&' characters used as reserved characters
>(escaped as %xx in any of the name or value

In the sub-group that discussed this issue method of sending the form response as part of the URL would not really
scale elegantly in the future. Consider the form:

Your name:<INPUT name="address"><p>
5000 word essay describing why you should win the free trip to Australia:
<input name="essay" size = 80x500>

This would clearly result in monstrous URL's, yet it is not
unrepresentative of some potential uses of forms.

Since HTTP/1.0 would support new methods in addition to GET, a
reasonable possibility seemed the addition of a new method (say SUBMITFORM)
for submitting completed forms. Maybe the reply method should be something
that can be specified ACTION modifier of the <FORM> tag, with the possibilities
being

mailto:<e-mail address> Form sent as e-mail to specified recipient
http:<address> Indicates to return form data as a query string
submitform:<address> Indicates to submit the form using the SUBMITFORM
method.

Comments?

Tony