submit a rails remote form with javascript

In Rails 5.1+, which replaces the old jquery-ujs with a non-jquery rails-ujs, the above answers no longer work, always submitting the form via an HTML HTTP request. This is how you trigger the new rails submit event handler:

var elem = document.getElementById('myform') // or $('#myform')[0] with jQuery Rails.fire(elem, 'submit'); 

(Can't tell you how long it took me to figure that one out...) For some reason, the regular events don't bubble up properly to the delegated event handler attached by rails using rails' new delegate function, when they are triggered by jQuery.

This is simply in Rails way :

 $("#myform").trigger('submit.rails'); 

How about using rails_ujs and simply do the following:

Rails.fire(form, 'submit'); 

(where form is a DOM Element)

This feels like a proper Rails way to do it.

You can check out the source here – https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/actionview/app/assets/javascripts/rails-ujs/utils/event.coffee#L34

If you don't have access to Rails from your javascript, and you don't want to try to get it set up, there is an easier solution!

You can use requestSubmit on the html element, instead of submit, and it will work the way you'd expect it to, since requestSubmit raises a submit even, and submit does not.

See the difference between submit and requestSubmit here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLFormElement/submit

In the case above, you could use:

$('#my-form')[0].requestSubmit() 

How about passing json from controller and capturing it by your js.

Now, controller's action as

respond_to do |format| if some condition format.json { render :json => {:success => true} } format.html{ redirect_to some_path, :notice => "successfully created" } else ... end end 

And capturing the json in js as

$('#my-form').bind 'ajax:success', (event,data) -> if(data.success == true) ... 

Not exactly what you are looking for but hope this turns out to be of any help.

I'm updatting the answer to rails 6.

If you are having this issue in rails 6, it is likelly that you forgot to add the parameter "format: :js" to the form builder.

<%= form_tag some_path, :method => :get, :id => 'my-form', :remote => true, :format => :js do %> <%= text_field_tag :search, params[:search], :id => 'search-field' %> <%= submit_tag 'Go' %> <% end %> 

You will also need to include a format.js in your controller.

def update respond_to do |format| if @model.update(user_params) format.html { redirect_to @model, notice: 'Model was successfully updated.' } format.json { render :show, status: :ok, location: @model } format.js { logger.debug "this will run in the update was ok." } else format.html { render :edit } format.json { render json: @model.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity } format.js { logger.debug "this will run in the update was not ok." } end end end 

Now, from the JavaScript, you can just call the submit to this form regularly.

this.form.submit() 

I know this is an old topic but I have been struggling with this now for some time and finally found a solution.

I had a form with remote: true that included a file_field and I wanted the form to submit automatically as soon as the user added the file. I tried onchange: form.submit(); but that way the form was submitted as HTML.

My solution: clicking the (hidden) form submit button with JS:

onchange: $("#submit-button").click(); 

@mltsy answer works perfect for me. However, wanted to reiterate that this requires the use of rails-ujs. If you've upgraded from an older version like me, you might still be using the jquery dependent jquery_ujs. If you're getting ReferenceError: Can't find variable: Rails in your console, check your application.js and make sure you have rails-ujs or @mltsy's great answer won't work. I wanted to leave a comment instead of an answer, but Stack won't let me.