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Prevent empty fields from showing up in the url on form submit?

 
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Hi, hopefully this is the correct forum.

My java web project uses jsp and struts, but this question i think is more html form related.

I have an web app that submits a form for searching products. there are tons of advanced search options besides just your normal criteria string. categories, price range, product name, model, etc etc.

As a result, our URL looks huge (much bigger than just this in the real app): http://site.com/search?model=&productName=my+product&range=&category=

Most of the time, just one of these are filled out. Is there a way to have the form not submit empty string for all of these unused form fields when submitting the form so my URLs look a bit cleaner?

Thanks!
Aaron
 
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Well you can loop through the form yourself and find the fields that have values and than set the url

window.location.href="myUrl?" + strValues;

Eric
 
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I'm not sure why it's an issue, but if you'd rather the empty fields not get submitted you can write an onsubmit handler that disables all the fields that are empty.
 
Aaron Wilt
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i tried setting disabled="true" on a field then submitting it, but it still showed up in the url.

i thought perhaps writing a js method to spin through all the form elements onsubmit and then manually creating the URL might be the only way... hoping for another way though.

question: does it matter that these elements are hidden?
[ January 09, 2008: Message edited by: Aaron Wilt ]
 
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Originally posted by Aaron Wilt:
i tried setting disabled="true" on a field then submitting it, but it still showed up in the url. ...



Check your syntax and make sure you aren't getting any Javascript exceptions. It should be working. If need be, test the idea in a smaller, simpler page, like this:
 
Don't get me started about those stupid light bulbs.
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