Perl CGI -disabled

misterperl has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I guess this is more of an HTML question than Perl, but I've read the detailed desctiption of the cgi.pm -disabled switch (used on an input text box) and all it says is it prevents the user from clicking into the box. Which is exactly what I need.

But IN ADDITION, the param seems to vanish from the cgi returned from the page? That seems particularly undesirable, since now I'm having to push it in with a cgi->hidden to get the dataset proper again.

Is the disappearing param an actual built-in functionality of disabled, or is something else going on?

-disabled is also one of those oddball switches where it's specification is undefined. Some pages suggest you use -disabled => 1,
others -disabled => 'on',
and others say -disabled,
is sufficient. Aggregated docs are unclear.
TY and happy Monday.

Comment on Perl CGI -disabled

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Re: Perl CGI -disabled by McA (Priest) on Sep 22, 2014 at 15:07 UTC
Hi, I couldn't find a hint on that `-disabled` in the perldoc of CGI concerning an input field. But anyways: When you have a chance to create your HTML tags by hand you could use the HTML attribute `readonly` for input fields (http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_input_readonly.asp). When I'm not totally wrong the value of that input field should be transmitted back to the server. Regards McA	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Perl CGI -disabled by choroba (Cardinal) on Sep 22, 2014 at 15:15 UTC
The quality of W3Schools you linked to has been disputed, but they explain `-disabled` together with its behaviour when submitted: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_input_disabled.asp Tip: Disabled `<input>` elements in a form will not be submitted. لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Perl CGI -disabled by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Sep 22, 2014 at 15:36 UTC
OT: I think W3Schools gets an unfair shake. As you note, they had the right answer in this case. I reported a documentation/interpretation bug to the webmaster back in 2002 or something and got an immediate response and fix. (update, `s/a/an/;` DERP.)	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: Perl CGI -disabled by McA (Priest) on Sep 22, 2014 at 15:39 UTC
Thanks for the valueable annotation. I haven't found that. By the way: I never ever used CGI.pm to produce HTML. It felt always clumsy to me. I have to admit: W3Schools was the first result at Google. :-) McA	[reply]
Re^4: Perl CGI -disabled by misterperl (Friar) on Sep 23, 2014 at 13:42 UTC
Re^5: Perl CGI -disabled by marto (Cardinal) on Sep 23, 2014 at 14:06 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re: Perl CGI -disabled by ikegami (Patriarch) on Sep 22, 2014 at 15:38 UTC
You want to set the `readonly` attribute, not the `disabled` one. (Bonus: Browsers tend to allow copying of text in readonly controls, but not disabled ones.) Is the disappearing param an actual built-in functionality of disabled, or is something else going on? It's required by the HTML spec. (Only successful controls are submitted, and "Controls that are disabled cannot be successful.")	[reply] [d/l] [select]