Should jQuery's $(form).submit(); not trigger onSubmit within the form tag?

I have the following:

<script type="text/javascript">
function CancelFormButton(button) {
    $(button.form).submit();
}
</script>

<form onsubmit="alert('here');">
<input type="button" value="Cancel" onClick="CancelFormButton(this);" />
</form>

When I click the "Cancel" button, the onsubmit from the form tag is not triggered.

This line instead submits the form successfully: $(button.form).submit(); but skips the alert('here'); within the onsubmit in the form tag.

Is this correct or am I doing something wrong?

By the way, in this case, I want this functionality, but I'm just wondering if I'm going to run into a problem in a browser where the onsubmit is triggered.


Sorry, misunderstood your question.

According to Javascript - capturing onsubmit when calling form.submit():

I was recently asked: "Why doesn't the form.onsubmit event get fired when I submit my form using javascript?"

The answer: Current browsers do not adhere to this part of the html specification. The event only fires when it is activated by a user - and does not fire when activated by code.

(emphasis added).

Note: "activated by a user" also includes hitting submit buttons (probably including default submit behaviour from the enter key but I haven't tried this). Nor, I believe, does it get triggered if you (with code) click a submit button.


This work around will fix the issue found by @Cletus.

function submitForm(form) {
    //get the form element's document to create the input control with
    //(this way will work across windows in IE8)
    var button = form.ownerDocument.createElement('input');
    //make sure it can't be seen/disrupts layout (even momentarily)
    button.style.display = 'none';
    //make it such that it will invoke submit if clicked
    button.type = 'submit';
    //append it and click it
    form.appendChild(button).click();
    //if it was prevented, make sure we don't get a build up of buttons
    form.removeChild(button);
}

Will work on all modern browsers.
Will work across tabs/spawned child windows (yes, even in IE<9).
And is in vanilla!

Just pass it a DOM reference to a form element and it'll make sure all the attached listeners, the onsubmit, and (if its not prevented by then) finally, submit the form.