JavaScript post request like a form submit

Question

I'm trying to direct a browser to a different page. If I wanted a GET request, I might say

document.location.href = 'http://example.com/q=a';

But the resource I'm trying to access won't respond properly unless I use a POST request. If this were not dynamically generated, I might use the HTML

<form action="http://example.com/" method="POST">
  <input type="hidden" name="q" value="a">
</form>

Then I would just submit the form from the DOM.

But really I would like JavaScript code that allows me to say

post_to_url('http://example.com/', {'q':'a'});

What's the best cross browser implementation?

Edit

I'm sorry I was not clear. I need a solution that changes the location of the browser, just like submitting a form. If this is possible with XMLHttpRequest, it is not obvious. And this should not be asynchronous, nor use XML, so Ajax is not the answer.

Solution 1

Dynamically create <input>s in a form and submit it

/**
 * sends a request to the specified url from a form. this will change the window location.
 * @param {string} path the path to send the post request to
 * @param {object} params the parameters to add to the url
 * @param {string} [method=post] the method to use on the form
 */

function post(path, params, method='post') {

  // The rest of this code assumes you are not using a library.
  // It can be made less verbose if you use one.
  const form = document.createElement('form');
  form.method = method;
  form.action = path;

  for (const key in params) {
    if (params.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
      const hiddenField = document.createElement('input');
      hiddenField.type = 'hidden';
      hiddenField.name = key;
      hiddenField.value = params[key];

      form.appendChild(hiddenField);
    }
  }

  document.body.appendChild(form);
  form.submit();
}

Example:

post('/contact/', {name: 'Johnny Bravo'});

EDIT: Since this has gotten upvoted so much, I'm guessing people will be copy-pasting this a lot. So I added the hasOwnProperty check to fix any inadvertent bugs.

Solution 2

This would be a version of the selected answer using jQuery.

// Post to the provided URL with the specified parameters.
function post(path, parameters) {
    var form = $('<form></form>');

    form.attr("method", "post");
    form.attr("action", path);

    $.each(parameters, function(key, value) {
        var field = $('<input></input>');

        field.attr("type", "hidden");
        field.attr("name", key);
        field.attr("value", value);

        form.append(field);
    });

    // The form needs to be a part of the document in
    // order for us to be able to submit it.
    $(document.body).append(form);
    form.submit();
}

Solution 3

A simple quick-and-dirty implementation of @Aaron answer:

document.body.innerHTML += '<form id="dynForm" action="http://example.com/" method="post"><input type="hidden" name="q" value="a"></form>';
document.getElementById("dynForm").submit();

Of course, you should rather use a JavaScript framework such as Prototype or jQuery...

Solution 4

Using the createElement function provided in this answer, which is necessary due to IE's brokenness with the name attribute on elements created normally with document.createElement:

function postToURL(url, values) {
    values = values || {};

    var form = createElement("form", {action: url,
                                      method: "POST",
                                      style: "display: none"});
    for (var property in values) {
        if (values.hasOwnProperty(property)) {
            var value = values[property];
            if (value instanceof Array) {
                for (var i = 0, l = value.length; i < l; i++) {
                    form.appendChild(createElement("input", {type: "hidden",
                                                             name: property,
                                                             value: value[i]}));
                }
            }
            else {
                form.appendChild(createElement("input", {type: "hidden",
                                                         name: property,
                                                         value: value}));
            }
        }
    }
    document.body.appendChild(form);
    form.submit();
    document.body.removeChild(form);
}

Solution 5

Rakesh Pai's answer is amazing, but there is an issue that occurs for me (in Safari) when I try to post a form with a field called submit. For example, post_to_url("http://google.com/",{ submit: "submit" } );. I have patched the function slightly to walk around this variable space collision.

    function post_to_url(path, params, method) {
        method = method || "post";

        var form = document.createElement("form");

        //Move the submit function to another variable
        //so that it doesn't get overwritten.
        form._submit_function_ = form.submit;

        form.setAttribute("method", method);
        form.setAttribute("action", path);

        for(var key in params) {
            var hiddenField = document.createElement("input");
            hiddenField.setAttribute("type", "hidden");
            hiddenField.setAttribute("name", key);
            hiddenField.setAttribute("value", params[key]);

            form.appendChild(hiddenField);
        }

        document.body.appendChild(form);
        form._submit_function_(); //Call the renamed function.
    }
    post_to_url("http://google.com/", { submit: "submit" } ); //Works!

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