HTML <input> Tag with 'type=hidden'

<form name="myForm" action="http://www.htmlcodes.ws/resources/html-forms-action.cfm">
	
<input type="hidden" name="myHiddenField" value="12345">

<button>Submit Hidden Field</button>
</form>

The above example demonstrates usage of the <input> element with the type attribute set to hidden (i.e. type="hidden").

The hidden value represents an abitrary string. The field is hidden from the user — no control is displayed.

A hidden control can be used to submit a value to the script that processes the form without the user needing to include it (or even needing to know about it).

When an <input> element is in the Hidden state (eg, you have specified type="hidden"), that element represents a value that is not intended to be examined or manipulated by the user.

Hidden form controls were initially created as a work around to the statelessness of HTTP. They allowed authors (and still do) to pass values back to the server when a form is submitted. For example, a hidden field could contain the ID of an article when a user submits a comment against that article.

The HTML 3.2 specification had this to say about hidden form fields:

These fields should not be rendered and provide a means for servers to store state information with a form. This will be passed back to the server when the form is submitted, using the name/value pair defined by the corresponding attributes. This is a work around for the statelessness of HTTP. Another approach is to use HTTP "Cookies".