jQuery find parent form

i have this html

<ul>
    <li><form action="#" name="formName"></li>
    <li><input type="text" name="someName" /></li>
    <li><input type="text" name="someOtherName" /></li>
    <li><input type="submit" name="submitButton" value="send"></li>
    <li></form></li>
</ul>

How can i select the form that the input[name="submitButton"] is part of ? (when i click on the submit button i want to select the form and append some fields in it)

Solution 1:

I would suggest using closest, which selects the closest matching parent element:

$('input[name="submitButton"]').closest("form");

Instead of filtering by the name, I would do this:

$('input[type=submit]').closest("form");

Solution 2:

You can use the form reference which exists on all inputs, this is much faster than .closest() (5-10 times faster in Chrome and IE8). Works on IE6 & 7 too.

var input = $('input[type=submit]');
var form = input.length > 0 ? $(input[0].form) : $();