That said, I'd try to avoid the intrinsic event attributes in favour of unobtrusive JS with a library (such as YUI or jQuery) that has a good event handling API and tie into the event that really matters (i.e. the form's submit event instead of the button's click event).
You need onSubmit. Not onClick otherwise someone can just press enter and it will bypass your validation. As for canceling. you need to return false. Here's the code:
<form onSubmit="return btnClick()">
<input type='submit' value='submit request'>
function btnClick() {
if (!validData()) return false;
}
With JQuery is even more simple: works in Asp.Net MVC and Asp.Core
<script>
$('#btnSubmit').on('click', function () {
if (ValidData) {
return true; //submit the form
}
else {
return false; //cancel the submit
}
});
</script>
This is a very old thread but it is sure to be noticed. Hence the note that the solutions offered are no longer up to date and that modern Javascript is much better.
<script>
document.getElementById(id of the form).addEventListener(
"submit",
function(event)
{
if(validData() === false)
{
event.preventDefault();
}
},
false
);
The form receives an event handler that monitors the submit. If the there called function validData (not shown here) returns a FALSE, calling the method PreventDefault, which suppresses the submit of the form and the browser returns to the input. Otherwise the form will be sent as usual.
P.S. This also works with the attribute onsubmit. Then the anonymus function function(event){...} must in the attribute onsubmit of the form. This is not really modern and you can only work with one event handler for submit. But you don't have to create an extra javascript. In addition, it can be specified directly in the source code as an attribute of the form and there is no need to wait until the form is integrated in the DOM.