PHP Form Submission: Recognize Image Input Buttons

By  on  

As you probably know, you can recognize a form submission from a "submit" input type by placing the following code in the "processing" PHP script:

if(isset($_POST['submit'])) { /* do stuff */ }

Did you know, however, that when using an "image" input type to submit the form, the above wont work? You need to add a "_x" to the field name in PHP:

if(isset($_POST['submit_x'])) { /* do stuff */ }

Odd, huh? This works the same when using a form "GET" method.

Recent Features

  • By
    Serving Fonts from CDN

    For maximum performance, we all know we must put our assets on CDN (another domain).  Along with those assets are custom web fonts.  Unfortunately custom web fonts via CDN (or any cross-domain font request) don't work in Firefox or Internet Explorer (correctly so, by spec) though...

  • By
    Responsive Images: The Ultimate Guide

    Chances are that any Web designers using our Ghostlab browser testing app, which allows seamless testing across all devices simultaneously, will have worked with responsive design in some shape or form. And as today's websites and devices become ever more varied, a plethora of responsive images...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    prefers-color-scheme: CSS Media Query

    One device and app feature I've come to appreciate is the ability to change between light and dark modes. If you've ever done late night coding or reading, you know how amazing a dark theme can be for preventing eye strain and the headaches that result.

  • By
    Instagram For MooTools

    If you're still rocking an iPhone and fancy taking a photo every now and then, you'd be crazy not to be using an app called Instagram.  With Instagram you take the photos just as you would with your native iPhone camera app, but Instagram...

Discussion

  1. The _x and _y represent the coordinate location you clicked the image at.

  2. Think this is only an issue with IE.

  3. Yeah. The _x- and _y-coordinates are great for improving the security of a form! I’ve used this to determine if the form has been filled by a human. A spam-bot won’t submit any coordinates but a human has to click on the button and so there will always be coordinates (you’ll have to deactive submitting with the ENTER-button).

  4. @Matthias: Good point on the security enhancement — I’ve never though of that!

  5. Braxo

    @ Matthias

    Thanks for posting your comment. I think telling the user that the ENTER button has been deactivated for bot protection is easier than having the user type in a captcha.

    I’ll definitely be looking into that method and most likely incorporating it into my projects.

  6. @Braxo – Wait – “Enter button” is deactivated? How would this affect someone who cannot use a mouse/relies on accessibility tools to fill out forms and the like?

    Some sites cannot get away with it (coughtargetcough).

  7. You can save yourself the trouble and just give the input a name attribute and check for that. Saves from changing code in two places (the input and the PHP submit validation).

    <input type="image" src="image.png" name="submitted" value="Submit" />

  8. I should clarify that…

    It saves from changing code in 2 places should you want to change to/from an image submit or a standard submit.

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!