A webform on a web page allows a user to enter data that is sent to a server for processing. Webforms resemble paper or database forms because internet users fill out the forms using checkboxes, radio buttons, or text fields. For example, webforms can be used to enter shipping or credit card data to order a product or can be used to retrieve data (e.g., searching on a search engine).

In addition to functioning as input templates for new information, webforms can also be used to query and display existing data in a similar manner to mail merge forms, with the same advantages. The decoupling of message structure and underlying data allow both to vary independently. The use of webforms for this purpose avoids the problems associated with explicitly creating separate web pages for each record in a database.

Webforms are defined in formal programming languages such as HTML, Perl, PHP, Java, Javascript or .NET (including ASP.NET). The implementations of these languages often automatically invoke user interface idioms, such as grids and themes, minimizing programming time, costs and risks.

XHTML/HTML forms[link]

Sample form rendered by Mozilla Firefox. (Click on image to find the source HTML code that generated this form.)

A form in XHTML or HTML is by far the most common way to use a form online.

The following elements can make up the user-inputting portion of a form:

• input field
  • text — a simple text box that allows input of a single line of text (an alternative, password, is used for security purposes, in which the characters typed in are invisible or replaced by symbols such as *)
  • checkbox — a check box
  • radio — a radio button
  • file — a file select control for uploading a file
  • reset — a reset button that, when activated, tells the browser to restore the values to their initial values.
  • submit — a button that tells the browser to take action on the form (typically to send it to a server)
• textarea — much like the text input field except a textarea allows for multiple rows of data to be shown and entered
• select — a drop-down list that displays a list of items a user can select from

The sample image on the right shows all of these elements:

• a text box asking for your name
• a pair of radio buttons asking you to pick your sex
• a select box giving you a list of eye colors to choose from
• a pair of check boxes to click on if they apply to you
• a text area to describe your athletic ability
• a submit button to send it to the server

These basic elements provide most possible graphical user interface (GUI) elements, but not all. For example, there are no equivalents to a combo box, balloon help, tree view, or grid view. A grid view, however, can be mimicked by using a standard HTML table with each cell containing a text input element. A tree view could also be mimicked through nested tables or, more semantically appropriately, nested lists. Many of these are available through JavaScript libraries.

When data that has been entered into HTML forms is submitted, the form control names and values are encoded and sent to the server in an HTTP request message using method GET or POST, or, historically, via email.^[1] The default encoding, MIME type application/x-www-form-urlencoded, is based on a very early version of the general URI percent-encoding rules, with a number of modifications such as newline normalization and replacing spaces with "+" instead of "%20". Another possible encoding, MIME type multipart/form-data, is also available and is common for POST-based file submissions.

XForms[link]

XForms is an alternative standard designed to represent the next generation of HTML / XHTML forms. It is also a standard that is generic enough to be used in a standalone manner or with presentation languages other than HTML or XHTML to describe forms in other user interfaces. Unlike HTML / XHTML forms, XForms uses a model–view–controller approach.

An XForms document can be as simple as an HTML / XHTML web form. But XForms includes many advanced features. For example, the form can react in real time and request and retrieve new information while it is still being displayed, without the use of a separate scripting language. The form can specify how its data should be validated or how portions of the form may change depending on data entered in other parts of the form.

Unlike HTML / XHTML forms, XForms is not currently supported on available web browsers.

Combined with scripting languages[link]

This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (March 2011)

Forms can be combined with various scripting languages to allow developers to create dynamic web sites. This includes both client-side and/or server-side languages.

Client-side[link]

The de facto client-side scripting language for web sites is JavaScript. Utilizing JavaScript on the Document Object Model (DOM) leads to the method of Dynamic HTML that allows dynamic creation and modification of a web page within the browser.

While client-side languages used in conjunction with forms are limited, they often can serve to do pre-validation of the form data and/or to prepare the form data to send to a server-side program.

Server-side[link]

Server-side programs can do a vast assortment of tasks to create dynamic web sites — from authenticating a login through, for example, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol to retrieving and storing data in a database to spell checking to sending e-mail — quite unlike client-side programs. Some server-side program requests must pass through the web server's Common Gateway Interface to execute the program to actually perform the tasks.

The advantage of server-side over client-side is the concentration of functionality onto one computer (the server) instead of relying on each web browser implementing all of the various functions the same. This very problem is quite evident to any developer who writes JavaScript code for multiple browsers.

Scripting languages are the most common server-side programs used for web sites, but it is also possible to run compiled programs.

Registration form of PHP-based E-Commerce Web-Shop-Software ZenCart

Some of the scripting languages commonly used:

• PHP
• Perl
• ASP
• ASP.NET
• Adobe ColdFusion
• JSP
• Ruby on Rails
• Python

Some of the compiling languages commonly used:

• C
• C++
• C#
• Java
• VB

PHP[link]

PHP is one very common language used for server-side languages and is one of the few languages created specifically for server-side programs.

A PHP script may:

• display the information on another page (ex: asking for a user's name and then displaying it on the web page)
• act as a logon interface
• post the data to a database (ex: mySQL, an ASCII file, etc.)
• store the information on the viewer's computer in an HTTP cookie
• generate an e-mail, either using the data or including said data in the e-mail's contents (possibly as an e-mail attachment)

The HTML form learns where to pass the data (from the action attribute of the form's HTML element). The target PHP file then retrieves the data either through POST or GET (see HTTP for more information), depending on the programmer's preference. Here is a basic form handler PHP script that will post the form's contents, in this case "user", to the page using GET:

form.html <source lang="html4strict"> <html> <body>

<form action="form_handler.php" method="get">
  User Name: <input name="user" type="text" />
  <input type="submit" />
</form>

</body> </html> </source>

form_handler.php <source lang="php"> <html> <body> <?php

/*
 * This will print whatever the user put into the form on the form.html page.
 */

$name = $_GET['user'];
echo "Hello, ". $name ."!";

?> </body> </html> </source>

In the above script the $_GET[''] and $_POST[''] commands need to be changed, depending on what is used in the form, however $_REQUEST[''] is used for both so it is more efficient to use for form collection. Note that the value used in input name="" in the html form must be the same as the array value in the $GET[''] expression in the PHP form handler program.

Perl[link]

Perl is another language often used for web development. Perl scripts are traditionally used as Common Gateway Interface applications (CGIs). In fact, Perl is such a common way to write CGIs that the two are often confused. CGIs may be written in other languages than Perl (compatibility with multiple languages is a design goal of the CGI protocol) and there are other ways to make Perl scripts interoperate with a web server than using CGI (such as FastCGI or Apache's mod perl).

Perl CGIs were once a very common way to write web applications. But not being specifically designed for web development, Perl is now often viewed as less practical (both for developers and users) than specialized languages like PHP or ASP^{[citation needed]}. This is especially true if Perl modules would need to be installed on the web host or if wanting to use a non-CGI environment that might require extra configurations on the web server. Some web hosts also rely on interpreter-level sandboxing, which while possible with the Safe module, wouldn't be very practical and undoubtly break a lot of scripts considering common practices.^{[citation needed]} Similar considerations might apply to other general-purpose scripting languages like Python or Ruby.^{[citation needed]} For these reasons, a lot of cheap web hosts nowadays effectively only support PHP and web developers often seek compatibility with them.^{[citation needed]}

A modern Perl 5 CGI using the standard CGI module with a form similar to the one above might look like:

form_handler.pl <source lang="perl">

1. !/usr/bin/perl

use CGI qw(:standard);

$user = param('user'); print header; print html(

 body(
   p("Hello, $user!"),
 ),

); </source>

Form-to-email scripts[link]

Among the simplest and most commonly needed types of server-side script is that which simply emails the contents of a submitted form. This kind of script is frequently exploited by spammers, however, and many of the most popular form-to-email scripts in use are vulnerable to be hijacked for spamming purposes. One of the most popular scripts of this type was "FormMail.pl" made by Matt's Script Archive. Today, no version of this still frequently used script is considered secure.

To avoid the confusion and difficulty of installing and using scripts, webmasters often use a free forms processing service to get their forms working.

Form builders[link]

Many companies offer forms "as-a-Service". Usually, these companies give some kind of visual editor, reporting tools and infrastructure to create and host the forms, that can be embedded into webpages. Hosting companies such as Bluehost and Doteasy provide templates to their clients as an add-on free service. Others offer free contact forms installable on any hosted website.

See also[link]

• CAPTCHA
• LAMP (software bundle)
• Postback
• XForms
• .ASPX Files

References[link]

External links[link]

• Forms in HTML documents, the W3C's spec page for forms in HTML 4.
• Wikibooks: HyperText Markup Language/Forms
• How to create a HTML form with JavaScript client-side validation
• How to accept and verify that user input is set with PHP

Look up -form or form in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up form in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object.

Form may also refer to:

• Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter data
• Form (education), a class, set or group of students
• Form (exercise), a proper way of performing an exercise
• Form (horse racing), a record of a racehorse's performance, or similarly for an athlete
• Form (nest), a shallow depression or flattened nest of grass used by a hare
• Form (religion), an academic term for prescriptions or norms on religious practice
• Musical form, a generic type of composition or the structure of a particular piece
• Criminal record, slang

Mathematics[link]

• Algebraic form (homogeneous polynomial), which generalises quadratic forms to degrees 3 and more, also known as quantics or simply forms
• Bilinear form, on a vector space V over a field F is a mapping V × V → F that is linear in both arguments
• Differential form, a concept from differential topology that combines multilinear forms and smooth functions
• Indeterminate form, an algebraic expression that cannot be used to evaluate a limit
• Modular form, a (complex) analytic function on the upper half plane satisfying a certain kind of functional equation and growth condition
• Multilinear form, which generalises bilinear forms to mappings V^N → F
• Quadratic form, a homogeneous polynomial of degree two in a number of variables

Biology[link]

• Form (botany), a formal taxon at a rank lower than species
• Form (zoology), informal taxa used sometimes in zoology

Computing[link]

• Form (web), a document form used on a web page to, typically, submit user data to a server
• Form (programming), a component-based representation of a GUI window
• FORM (symbolic manipulation system), a program for symbolic computations
• Form (computer virus), the most common computer virus of the 1990s
• Oracle Forms, a Rapid Application Development environment for developing database applications
• Windows Forms, the graphical API within the Microsoft .NET Framework for access to native Microsoft Windows interface elements
• XForms, an XML format for the specification of user interfaces, specifically web forms

Martial arts[link]

• Kata (型 or 形), the detailed pattern of defence-and-attack
• Taeguk (Taekwondo) (형), the "forms" used to create a foundation for the teaching of Taekwondo
• Taolu (套路), forms used in Chinese martial arts and sport wushu

Philosophy[link]

• Substantial form, asserts that ideas organize matter and make it intelligible
• Theory of Forms, asserts that ideas possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality
• Value-form, an approach to understanding the origins of commodity trade and the formation of markets
• Argument form, aka Logical form or Test form - replacing the different words, or sentences, that make up the argument with letters, along the lines of algebra; the letters represent logical variables

Other[link]

• First-order reliability method, a semi-probabilistic reliability analysis method devised to evaluate the reliability of a system
• Form, the relation a word has to a lexeme
• Formwork, a mould used for concrete construction
• Isoform, several different forms of the same protein
• Sixth form, an English term for the final two years of secondary school
• The Forms (band), an American indie rock band

See also[link]

• FORM (disambiguation)
• Formation (disambiguation)
• Formula (disambiguation)
• Conformity (disambiguation)
• Deformation (disambiguation)
• Inform (disambiguation)
• Reform (disambiguation)
• All pages beginning with "Form"
• All pages with titles containing "Form"

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Look up web in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Web may refer to:

Biology[link]

• Spider web, a mesh built by a spider, composed of spider silk and usually used for trapping prey
• Interdigital webbing, skin membranes between the digits of semiaquatic mammals

Computing[link]

• World Wide Web or "the Web", a hypertext system that operates over the Internet
  • Web 2.0, a perceived transition of the Web from a collection of Web sites to a full-fledged computing platform serving Web applications
  • World Wide Web Conference (WWW), a yearly international academic conference on the topic of the future direction of the World Wide Web
  • World Wide Web Consortium, also known as W3C and W3.org, the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web
  • WorldWideWeb, the first web browser and editor
  • Web (web browser), the web browser included with GNOME desktop environment (previously known as Epiphany)
  • Web.com, a public company that offers websites and other services for small businesses and consumers
  • Webs (web hosting), a website which allows users to create free websites
• WEB, a computer programming system created by Donald Knuth to implement literate programming

Publications[link]

• The Web (comics), a comic book character
• Web (novel) by John Wyndham, posthumously published novel set on an island populated by spiders
• World English Bible (WEB), a public domain translation of the Bible
• The Web (series), a series of science fiction stories
• "The Web", a publication by Marillion.

Television, radio and film[link]

• WEBS (AM), a radio station at 1030 kHz, licensed to Calhoun, Georgia, United States
• The Web (film), a film noir
• The Web (TV series), a mystery/suspense anthology series
• "Web" (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
• Webs (film), a 2003 sci-fi movie
• The Web, a dangerous region of space in the ReBoot universe
• West End Broadcast (WeB FM), a radio station in Newcastle, England, that was a forerunner of NE1fm
• "The Web", an episode from the first season of the British science-fiction series Blake's 7

Miscellaneous[link]

• In mathematics, a linear system of divisors of dimension 3
• Offset printing web, a roll of paper is used, rather than individual pages
• Steel I-beams or trusses are made with a web, centered between the top and bottom flange
• Web Entertainment, a record label
• "The Web", a song from the album "Script for a Jester's Tear" by Marillion.
• Web (manufacturing) continuous sheets of material passed over rollers
• b:Nets, Webs and the Information Infrastructure

See also[link]

• Webb (disambiguation)
• Webbing: Webbing (textile), Interdigital webbing (Biology).

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Grandmaster Flash
Background information
Birth name	Joseph Saddler
Born	(1958-01-01) January 1, 1958 (age 54)
Origin	South Bronx, New York
Genres	Hip hop, old school hip hop, funk
Years active	1970–present
Labels	Sugar Hill Records, Enjoy Records, Elektra Records
Associated acts	Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five The Sugarhill Gang

Joseph Saddler (born January 1, 1958 in Bridgetown, Barbados), better known as King Grandmaster Flash, is an American hip hop musician and DJ—one of the pioneers of hip-hop DJing, cutting, and mixing.

He has been credited with the invention of the first crossfade by sourcing parts from a junkyard in the Bronx. It was initially an On/Off toggle switch from an old microphone that he transformed into a left/right switch which allowed him to switch from one turntable to another; switch from record one to record two.

Before this time DJs, like the first of them all, DJ Kool Herc, and then Afrika Bambaataa, would have to break up the party to pick up the needle and re-drop it on the record, or a new record; until Flash invented a new way to link one record to the other with the cross-fader. After this invention he went from being called Flash to Grandmaster Flash, having made a huge impact on the culture, he was repaid with this honorific name.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, becoming the first hip hop/rap artists to be so honored.^[1]

Biography[link]

Joseph Saddler's family migrated to the United States from Barbados, in the Caribbean, and he grew up in The Bronx, New York. He attended Samuel Gompers High School, a public vocational school, where he learned how to repair electronic equipment.^[2] Saddler's parents played an important role in his interest in music. His parents came from Barbados and his father was a big fan of Caribbean and black American records. As a child, Saddler was fascinated by his father's record collection. In an interview, he reflected: "My father was a very heavy record collector. He still thinks that he has the stronger collection. I used to open his closets and just watch all the records he had. I used to get into trouble for touching his records, but I'd go right back and bother them."^[3] Saddler's early interest in DJing came from this fascination with his father's record collection as well as his mother's desire for him to educate himself in electronics.^[4] After high school, he became involved in the earliest New York DJ scene, attending parties set up by early luminaries.

He is also a nephew to the late Former Feather Weight Champion of the World Sandy Saddler.^[5]

Innovations[link]

Grandmaster Flash carefully studied the DJing styles and techniques of earlier DJs, particularly Pete Jones, Kool Herc, and Grandmaster Flowers.^[6] As a teenager, he began experimenting with DJ gear in his bedroom, eventually developing and mastering three innovations that are still considered standard DJing techniques today.

• Backspin Technique ("Quick-Mix Theory") a.k.a. Early New York party DJs came to understand that short drum breaks were popular with party audiences. Aiming to isolate these breaks and extend them for longer durations, Grandmaster Flash learned that by using duplicate copies of the same record, he could play the break on one record while searching for the same fragment of music on the other (using his headphones). When the break finished on one turntable, he used his mixer to switch quickly to the other turntable, where the same beat was queued up and ready to play. Using the backspin technique, the same short phrase of music could be looped indefinitely.
• Punch Phrasing ("Clock Theory"): This technique involved isolating very short segments of music, typically horn hits, and rhythmically punching them over the sustained beat using the mixer.
• Scratching: Although the invention of record scratching is generally credited to Grand Wizzard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash perfected the technique and brought it to new audiences. Scratching, along with punch phrasing, exhibited a unique performative aspect of party DJing: instead of passively spinning records, he manipulated them to create new music.^[7]

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five[link]

Grandmaster Flash played parties and collaborated with rappers such as Kurtis Blow and Lovebug Starski. In the mid 1970s, he formed his own group. The original lineup consisted of Cowboy (Keith Wiggins), Melle Mel (Melvin Glover) and Kid(d) Creole (Nathaniel Glover), and the ensemble went by the name "Grandmaster Flash & the 3 MCs". Two other rappers briefly joined, but they were replaced more permanently by Rahiem (Guy Todd Williams, previously in the Funky Four) and Scorpio (Eddie Morris, a.k.a. Mr. Ness) to make Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Quickly gaining recognition for their skillful raps, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five pioneered MCing and freestyle battles. Some of the staple phrases in MCing have their origins in the early shows and recordings of the group. In 1977, the new group began performing regularly at Disco Fever in the Bronx, one of the first times a hip-hop group was given a weekly gig at a well-known venue.^[8] In fact, it is claimed that Cowboy created the term "Hip hop" while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers.^[9]

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were signed to Bobby Robinson's Enjoy Records and in 1979 released their first single, "Superrappin'." The following year they signed to Sugar Hill Records and began touring and releasing numerous singles. The seminal "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel", released in 1981, is a 7-minute solo showcase of Grandmaster Flash's virtuosic turntable skills, combining elements of Blondie's "Rapture," Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band's "Apache," Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," Chic's "Good Times," and the group's own "Freedom." It is also the first documented appearance of record scratching on a record. That year, the group opened for The Clash and were poorly received by an audience unaccustomed to the new style.^[10] The group's most significant hit was "The Message" (1982), which was produced by in-house Sugar Hill producer Clifton "Jiggs" Chase and featured session musician Duke Bootee. Unlike earlier rap tunes, "The Message" featured a grim narrative about inner city violence, drugs, and poverty. In 2002, its first year of archival, it was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, the first hip hop recording ever to receive this honor. Critics praised the song's social awareness, calling the chorus "a slow chant seething with desperation and fury."^[11] Other than Melle Mel, however, no members of the group actually appear in the song. Rahiem lip-synced Duke Bootee's vocal in the music video. The same year, Grandmaster Flash appeared in the movie "Wild Style" and sued Sugar Hill over the non-payment of royalties. Tensions mounted as "The Message" gained in popularity, eventually leading to a rupture between Melle Mel and Grandmaster Flash. Soon the group disintegrated entirely. Grandmaster Flash, Kid Creole, and Rahiem left Sugar Hill, signed with Elektra Records, and continued on as simply "Grandmaster Flash", while Melle Mel and the others continued on as "Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five".

Although frequently credited on the records, Grandmaster Flash doesn't actually appear on "The Message," "Freedom," or many of the other Furious Five songs.^[7] Although Grandmaster Flash provided the central element of the group's sound when performing live (in addition to giving the group its name), there was little room for his turntablism in early singles driven by the grooves of live session musicians. Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five reformed in 1987 for a charity concert, and in 1988 they released a new album. The group reunited again in 1994, although Cowboy died in 1989.

Today, Grandmaster Flash is the owner of a clothing line, "G.Phyre."^[12] In 2008 he released a memoir, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats.^[13] He hosts a weekly show on Sirius Satellite Radio (Friday Night Fire with Grandmaster Flash)^[14] and was presented with the BET "I Am Hip Hop Icon" award in 2006.^[15]

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were the first hip-hop/rap group inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 12, 2007 by Jay-Z.^[16] In 2008, he remixed the single "Into the Galaxy" by the Australian group, Midnight Juggernauts.^[17]

It has been said that "his pioneering mixing skills transformed the turntable into a true 'instrument', and his ability to get a crowd moving has made his DJ sets legendary." ^[18]

Grandmaster Flash appears in the video game DJ Hero as a playable character along with original mixes created for the game.^[19]

On his last album, The Bridge, appears the Spanish hip hop group Violadores del Verso.

Grandmaster Flash is currently working on his 12th album, set for release this spring.^[20]

Awards[link]

Grammys

• 2012 Hall of Fame for Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five single “The Message.”

Urban Music Awards

• 2009, Lifetime Achievement Award

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

• 2007, Inductee

BET Hip Hop Awards

• 2006, I Am Hip Hop Icon Award

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

Singles[link]

• 1979 - Superappin' (Enjoy 6001) Side A - Superappin'; Side B - Superappin' Theme
• 1980 - Freedom (Sugar Hill SH-549) Side A - vocal; Side B - instrumental
• 1981 - The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel (Sugar Hill SH-557)
• 1981 - Scorpio (Sugar Hill SH 118) Side A - vocal; Side B - instrumental
• 1982 - Flash To The Beat (Sugar Hill SH 574)
• 1984 - Jesse (Sugar Hill SH 133) Side A - vocal; Side B - instrumental
• 1984 - We Don't Work For Free (Sugar Hill SH 136) Side A - vocal; Side B - instrumental
• 1988 - Gold (edit) (Elektra EKR 70)
• 1996 - If U Wanna Party (feat. Carl Murray) (JAM 1002-8)

^{[21] [22]}

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (May 2012)

• Grandmaster Flash Official Page
• Official website of 2009 album The Bridge
• Grandmaster Flash on Myspace
• Grandmaster Flash Biography
• Grandmaster Cuts Faster
• Grandmaster Flash interview from Chaos Control Digizine
• Davey D of Hard Knock Radio Interviews Grandmaster Flash
• Grandmaster Flash interview on Fresh Air
• Grandmaster Flash interview April 2009
• Interview
• Article
• Pop Matters: interview
• Brian S Redd Interview
• DJ Tutor Interview