I am trying to get the actual string that is placed in a form action. The problem is when I do this, the action property resolves to an absolute path even though a relative path is in the HTML. How do I get the actual string that is in the action property?

Here is a sample of what I am referring to: /

I am trying to get the actual string that is placed in a form action. The problem is when I do this, the action property resolves to an absolute path even though a relative path is in the HTML. How do I get the actual string that is in the action property?

Here is a sample of what I am referring to: http://jsfiddle/MSY4s/

• javascript
• jquery
• forms
• dom

Share Follow asked Oct 4, 2012 at 14:12 BasemBasem 61411 gold badge1010 silver badges2525 bronze badges

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3 Answers 3

Sorted by: Reset to default 9

If you're already using jquery, I would use the .attr function rather than extracting the DOM element from the jQuery object. Like so:

$("form").attr("action");

That should give you literally what is in the action attribute. In the example you provided, that should look like "/somewhere". The second example in your jFiddle will show a full path since that's what is in the action attribute.

Relative URLs are always resolved to absolute ones on the base of the current document’s URL.

Try this:

Give both of your forms ids:

<form id="form1" action="/somewhere" method="post">
<input type="text" name="test" />
</form>

<form id="form2" action="https://fiddle.jshell/somewhere2" method="post">
<input type="text" name="test" />
</form>​

Then using these ids you can get the action attribute of each form:

$('#form1').attr('action');

$('#form2').attr('action');

You can also set the action attributes using the same tags:

$('#form1').attr('action', '[New Action Value]');

$('#form2').attr('action', '[New Action Value]');

Hope this helps.