Difference between id and name attributes in HTML

Question

What is the difference between the id and name attributes? They both seem to serve the same purpose of providing an identifier.

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Answer 1

Generally, it is assumed that name is always superseded by id. This is true, to some extent, but not for form fields and frame names, practically speaking. For example, with form elements the name attribute is used to determine the name-value pairs to be sent to a server-side program and should not be eliminated. Browsers do not use id in that manner. To be on the safe side, you could use name and id attributes on form elements. So, we would write the following:

To ensure compatibility, having matching name and id attribute values when both are defined is a good idea. However, be careful—some tags, particularly radio buttons, must have nonunique name values, but require unique id values. Once again, this should reference that id is not simply a replacement for name; they are different in purpose. Furthermore, do not discount the old-style approach, a deep look at modern libraries shows such syntax style used for performance and ease purposes at times. Your goal should always be in favor of compatibility.

Now in most elements, the name attribute has been deprecated in favor of the more ubiquitous id attribute. However, in some cases, particularly form fields (, , , and </code>), the name attribute lives on because it continues to be required to set the name-value pair for form submission. Also, we find that some elements, notably frames and links, may continue to use the name attribute because it is often useful for retrieving these elements by name.</p> <p>There is a clear distinction between id and name. Very often when name continues on, we can set the values the same. However, id must be unique, and name in some cases shouldn’t—think radio buttons. Sadly, the uniqueness of id values, while caught by markup validation, is not as consistent as it should be. CSS implementation in browsers will style objects that share an id value; thus, we may not catch markup or style errors that could affect our JavaScript until runtime.</p> <p>This is taken from the book JavaScript- <code>The Complete Reference by Thomas-Powell</code> </p> </p> <div class="appendcontent"> </div> </div> <div class="jieda-reply"> <span class="jieda-zan button_agree" type="zan" data-id='74240'> <i class="iconfont icon-zan"></i> <em>0</em> </span> <span type="reply" class="showpinglun" data-id="74240"> <i class="iconfont icon-svgmoban53"></i> 讨论(0) </span> <div class="jieda-admin"> </div> <div class="noreplaytext bb"> <center><div> <a href="https://www.e-learn.cn/qa/q-21641.html"> 查看其它19个回答 </a> </div></center> </div> </div> <div class="comments-mod " style="display: none; float:none;padding-top:10px;" id="comment_74240"> <div class="areabox clearfix"> <form class="layui-form" action=""> <div class="layui-form-item"> <label class="layui-form-label" style="padding-left:0px;width:60px;">发布评论:</label> <div class="layui-input-block" style="margin-left:90px;"> <input type="text" placeholder="不少于5个字" AUTOCOMPLETE="off" class="comment-input layui-input" name="content" /> <input type='hidden' value='0' name='replyauthor' /> </div> <div class="mar-t10"><span class="fr layui-btn layui-btn-sm addhuidapinglun" data-id="74240">提交评论 </span></div> </div> </form> </div> <hr> <ul class="my-comments-list nav"> <li class="loading"> <img src='https://www.e-learn.cn/qa/static/css/default/loading.gif' align='absmiddle' />  加载中... </li> </ul> </div> </li> </ul> <div class="layui-form layui-form-pane"> <form id="huidaform" name="answerForm" method="post"> <div class="layui-form-item layui-form-text"> <a name="comment"></a> <div class="layui-input-block"> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.e-learn.cn/qa/static/js/neweditor/ueditor.config.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.e-learn.cn/qa/static/js/neweditor/ueditor.all.js"></script> <script type="text/plain" id="editor" name="content" style="width:100%;height:200px;"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> var isueditor=1; var editor = UE.getEditor('editor',{ //这里可以选择自己需要的工具按钮名称,此处仅选择如下五个 toolbars:[['source','fullscreen', '|', 'undo', 'redo', '|', 'bold', 'italic', 'underline', 'fontborder', 'strikethrough', 'removeformat', 'formatmatch', 'autotypeset', 'blockquote', 'pasteplain', '|', 'forecolor', 'backcolor', 'insertorderedlist', 'insertunorderedlist', 'selectall', 'cleardoc', '|', 'rowspacingtop', 'rowspacingbottom', 'lineheight', '|', 'customstyle', 'paragraph', 'fontfamily', 'fontsize', '|', 'indent', '|', 'justifyleft', 'justifycenter', 'justifyright', 'justifyjustify', '|', 'link', 'unlink', 'anchor', '|', 'simpleupload', 'insertimage', 'scrawl', 'insertvideo', 'attachment', 'map', 'insertcode', '|', 'horizontal', '|', 'preview', 'searchreplace', 'drafts']], initialContent:'', //关闭字数统计 wordCount:false, zIndex:2, //关闭elementPath elementPathEnabled:false, //默认的编辑区域高度 initialFrameHeight:250 //更多其他参数，请参考ueditor.config.js中的配置项 //更多其他参数，请参考ueditor.config.js中的配置项 }); editor.ready(function() { editor.setDisabled(); }); $("#editor").find("*").css("max-width","362px"); </script> </div> </div> <div class="layui-form-item"> <label for="L_vercode" class="layui-form-label">验证码</label> <div class="layui-input-inline"> <input type="text" id="code" name="code" value="" required lay-verify="required" placeholder="图片验证码" autocomplete="off" class="layui-input"> </div> <div class="layui-form-mid"> <span style="color: #c00;"><img class="hand" src="https://www.e-learn.cn/qa/user/code.html" onclick="javascript:updatecode();" id="verifycode"><a class="changecode" href="javascript:updatecode();"> 看不清?</a></span> </div> </div> <div class="layui-form-item"> <input type="hidden" value="21641" id="ans_qid" name="qid"> <input type="hidden" id="tokenkey" name="tokenkey" value=''/> <input type="hidden" value="Difference between id and name attributes in HTML" id="ans_title" name="title"> <div class="layui-btn layui-btn-disabled" id="ajaxsubmitasnwer" >提交回复</div> </div> </form> </div> </div> <input type="hidden" value="21641" id="adopt_qid" name="qid" /> <input type="hidden" id="adopt_answer" value="0" name="aid" /> </div> <div class="layui-col-md4"> <!-- 热门讨论问题 --> <dl class="fly-panel fly-list-one"> <dt class="fly-panel-title">热议问题</dt> <!-- 本周热门讨论问题显示10条-->