How do you post to an iframe?

user_24958 0
Viewed 440830

How do you post data to an iframe?

post iframe
5 Answers

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.

Dylan_Beattie_50170

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'}
user_4684450

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;
}
user_15717090

You can use this code, will have to add proper params to be passed and also the api url to get the data.

var allParams = { xyz, abc }

    var parentElm = document.getElementBy... // your own element where you want to create the iframe

    // create an iframe 
    var addIframe = document.createElement('iframe');
    addIframe.setAttribute('name', 'sample-iframe');
    addIframe.style.height = height ? height : "360px";
    addIframe.style.width = width ? width : "360px";
    parentElm.appendChild(addIframe)

    // make an post request
    var form, input;
    form = document.createElement("form");
    form.action = 'example.com';
    form.method = "post";
    form.target = "sample-iframe";
    Object.keys(allParams).forEach(function (elm) {
        console.log('elm: ', elm, allParams[elm]);
        input = document.createElement("input");
        input.name = elm;
        input.value = allParams[elm];
        input.type = "hidden";
        form.appendChild(input);
    })
    parentElm.appendChild(form);
    form.submit();
user_141173670
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