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This post is part of my Today I learned series in which I share all my web development learnings.

If a form submits by pressing ENTER on a focused input field this is an implicit form submission.

But does every HTML form submit on ENTER?

HTML forms implicitly submit under two conditions:

  • the form has a submit button.
  • the form has only one input element.

So let me share a quick example:

<form onsubmit="alert(1)">
  <!-- this will alert if you press `ENTER` while "foo" is focused -->
  <input name="foo" />
</form>

<form onsubmit="alert(2)">
  <!-- this won't -->
  <input name="foo" />
  <input name="bar" />
</form>

Tip: if you want to work around this behavior, you can always add a hidden submit button. And if you want to read the spec defining form submissions, here we go.

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About Stefan Judis

Frontend nerd with over ten years of experience, freelance dev, "Today I Learned" blogger, conference speaker, and Open Source maintainer.

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