How do you post to an iframe?

Question

How do you post data to an iframe?

Answer 1

An iframe is used to embed another document inside a html page.

If the form is to be submitted to an iframe within the form page, then it can be easily acheived using the target attribute of the tag.

Set the target attribute of the form to the name of the iframe tag.

<form action="action" method="post" target="output_frame">
    <!-- input elements here --> 
</form>
<iframe name="output_frame" src="" id="output_frame" width="XX" height="YY">
</iframe>           

---

Advanced iframe target use
This property can also be used to produce an ajax like experience, especially in cases like file upload, in which case where it becomes mandatory to submit the form, in order to upload the files

The iframe can be set to a width and height of 0, and the form can be submitted with the target set to the iframe, and a loading dialog opened before submitting the form. So, it mocks a ajax control as the control still remains on the input form jsp, with the loading dialog open.

Exmaple

<script>
$( "#uploadDialog" ).dialog({ autoOpen: false, modal: true, closeOnEscape: false,                 
            open: function(event, ui) { jQuery('.ui-dialog-titlebar-close').hide(); } });

function startUpload()
{            
    $("#uploadDialog").dialog("open");
}

function stopUpload()
{            
    $("#uploadDialog").dialog("close");
}
</script>

<div id="uploadDialog" title="Please Wait!!!">
            <center>
            <img src="/imagePath/loading.gif" width="100" height="100"/>
            <br/>
            Loading Details...
            </center>
 </div>

<FORM  ENCTYPE="multipart/form-data" ACTION="Action" METHOD="POST" target="upload_target" onsubmit="startUpload()"> 
<!-- input file elements here--> 
</FORM>

<iframe id="upload_target" name="upload_target" src="#" style="width:0;height:0;border:0px solid #fff;" onload="stopUpload()">   
        </iframe>

Answer 2

If you want to change inputs in an iframe then submit the form from that iframe, do this

...
var el = document.getElementById('targetFrame');

var doc, frame_win = getIframeWindow(el); // getIframeWindow is defined below

if (frame_win) {
  doc = (window.contentDocument || window.document);
}

if (doc) {
  doc.forms[0].someInputName.value = someValue;
  ...
  doc.forms[0].submit();
}
...

Normally, you can only do this if the page in the iframe is from the same origin, but you can start Chrome in a debug mode to disregard the same origin policy and test this on any page.

function getIframeWindow(iframe_object) {
  var doc;

  if (iframe_object.contentWindow) {
    return iframe_object.contentWindow;
  }

  if (iframe_object.window) {
    return iframe_object.window;
  } 

  if (!doc && iframe_object.contentDocument) {
    doc = iframe_object.contentDocument;
  } 

  if (!doc && iframe_object.document) {
    doc = iframe_object.document;
  }

  if (doc && doc.defaultView) {
   return doc.defaultView;
  }

  if (doc && doc.parentWindow) {
    return doc.parentWindow;
  }

  return undefined;
}

Answer 3

This function creates a temporary form, then send data using jQuery :

function postToIframe(data,url,target){
    $('body').append('<form action="'+url+'" method="post" target="'+target+'" id="postToIframe"></form>');
    $.each(data,function(n,v){
        $('#postToIframe').append('<input type="hidden" name="'+n+'" value="'+v+'" />');
    });
    $('#postToIframe').submit().remove();
}

target is the 'name' attr of the target iFrame, and data is a JS object :

data={last_name:'Smith',first_name:'John'}

Answer 4

Depends what you mean by "post data". You can use the HTML target="" attribute on a <form /> tag, so it could be as simple as:

<form action="do_stuff.aspx" method="post" target="my_iframe">
  <input type="submit" value="Do Stuff!">
</form>

<!-- when the form is submitted, the server response will appear in this iframe -->
<iframe name="my_iframe" src="not_submitted_yet.aspx"></iframe>

If that's not it, or you're after something more complex, please edit your question to include more detail.

There is a known bug with Internet Explorer that only occurs when you're dynamically creating your iframes, etc. using Javascript (there's a work-around here), but if you're using ordinary HTML markup, you're fine. The target attribute and frame names isn't some clever ninja hack; although it was deprecated (and therefore won't validate) in HTML 4 Strict or XHTML 1 Strict, it's been part of HTML since 3.2, it's formally part of HTML5, and it works in just about every browser since Netscape 3.

I have verified this behaviour as working with XHTML 1 Strict, XHTML 1 Transitional, HTML 4 Strict and in "quirks mode" with no DOCTYPE specified, and it works in all cases using Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.13. My test case consist of two files, using classic ASP on IIS 6; they're reproduced here in full so you can verify this behaviour for yourself.

default.asp

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC
  "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Form Iframe Demo</title>
  </head>
  <body>
  <form action="do_stuff.asp" method="post" target="my_frame">
    <input type="text" name="someText" value="Some Text">
    <input type="submit">
  </form>
  <iframe name="my_frame" src="do_stuff.asp">
  </iframe>
  </body>
</html>

do_stuff.asp

<%@Language="JScript"%><?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC
  "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Form Iframe Demo</title>
  </head>
  <body>
  <% if (Request.Form.Count) { %>
  You typed: <%=Request.Form("someText").Item%>
  <% } else { %>
  (not submitted)
  <% } %>
  </body>
</html>

I would be very interested to hear of any browser that doesn't run these examples correctly.