Document.forms

The forms read-only property of the Document interface returns an HTMLCollection listing all the <form> elements contained in the document.

Note: Similarly, you can access a list of a form's component user input elements using the HTMLFormElement.elements property.

Syntax

collection = document.forms;

Value

An HTMLCollection object listing all of the document's forms. Each item in the collection is a HTMLFormElement representing a single <form> element.

If the document has no forms, the returned collection is empty, with a length of zero.

Examples

Getting form information

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
<title>document.forms example</title>
</head>

<body>

<form id="robby">
  <input type="button" onclick="alert(document.forms[0].id);" value="robby's form" />
</form>

<form id="dave">
  <input type="button" onclick="alert(document.forms[1].id);" value="dave's form" />
</form>

<form id="paul">
  <input type="button" onclick="alert(document.forms[2].id);" value="paul's form" />
</form>

</body>
</html>

Getting an element from within a form

var selectForm = document.forms[index];
var selectFormElement = document.forms[index].elements[index];

Named form access

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <title>document.forms example</title>
</head>

<body>

<form name="login">
  <input name="email" type="email">
  <input name="password" type="password">
  <button type="submit">Log in</button>
</form>

<script>
  var loginForm = document.forms.login; // Or document.forms['login']
  loginForm.elements.email.placeholder = 'test@example.com';
  loginForm.elements.password.placeholder = 'password';
</script>
</body>
</html>

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living Standard The definition of 'Document.forms' in that specification.	Living Standard
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 HTML Specification The definition of 'Document.forms' in that specification.	Obsolete	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
`forms`	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1	IE Full support 4	Opera Full support ≤12.1	Safari Full support 1	WebView Android Full support 1	Chrome Android Full support 18	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android Full support ≤12.1	Safari iOS Full support 1	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0

Legend

Full support: Full support