force form submit button click with jquery
<p>Trying to trigger the submit functionality from JQuery. what am I doing wrong? In theory, this should work. I've tried about 4 different ways though.</p>

<p>I have tried </p>

<pre><code>$('input#submit').trigger("click");

$( form:first ).submit();

$( form:first ).trigger("submit");

$('form#databaseActionForm').submit();
</code></pre>

<p>NOTHNG HAS WORKED (YET)?!</p>

<p>CODE:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;html lang="en"&gt;
&lt;head&gt;
    &lt;title&gt;Database Management&lt;/title&gt;
    &lt;meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /&gt;
        &lt;script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.1.0.min.js" integrity="sha256-cCueBR6CsyA4/9szpPfrX3s49M9vUU5BgtiJj06wt/s=" crossorigin="anonymous"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;
        &lt;style&gt;
            table td { border: 1px solid black; }
            table td:first-child { text-align: left; }
        &lt;/style&gt;
    &lt;script&gt;
        &lt;!--
        $(document).ready(function() {
            $('#erase').click(function() {
                if (confirm("Are you sure that you want to ERASE ALL DATA from the database?"))
                {
                    $('#buttonTypePressed').val("erase");
                    $('input#submit').trigger("click"); &lt;!-- HERE --&gt;
                }
            });

            $('#update').click(function() {
                var appID = $('#updateAppID').val();
                var field = $('#fieldName').val();
                var value = $('#newValue').val();

                if (appID == null || appID == "") {
                    alert("You must enter the ID number of the entry you wish to modify.");
                    $('#updateAppID').focus();
                }
                else if (field == null || field == "") {
                    alert("You must choose which field you wish to modify.");
                    $('#fieldName').focus();
                }
                else if (value == null || value == "") {
                    alert("You must choose the new value you wish to appear in the database.");
                    $('#newValue').focus();
                }
                else {
                    $('#buttonTypePressed').val("update");
                    $('input#submit').trigger("click"); &lt;!-- HERE --&gt;
                }
            });

            $('#delete').click(function() {
                var appID = $('#deleteAppID').val();

                if (appID == null || appID == "") {
                    alert("You must enter the ID number of the entry you wish to delete.");
                    $('#deleteAppID').focus();
                }
                else {
                    $('#buttonTypePressed').val("delete");
                    $('input#submit').trigger("click"); &lt;!-- HERE --&gt;
                }
            });
        });
        --&gt;
    &lt;/script&gt;
&lt;/head&gt;
&lt;body&gt;
    &lt;div id="container"&gt;
        &lt;from id="databaseActionForm" name="databaseActionForm" method="POST" action="&lt;?php echo htmlspecialchars($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']); ?&gt;"&gt;
            &lt;table border=0 style="margin: 50px auto; text-align: right;"&gt;
                &lt;tr style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: 1.5em; text-decoration: underline;"&gt;
                    &lt;th&gt;Action&lt;/th&gt;
                    &lt;th&gt;Additional Info&lt;/th&gt;
                    &lt;th&gt;Button&lt;/th&gt;
                &lt;/tr&gt;
                &lt;tr name="Clear"&gt;
                    &lt;td&gt;Erase Database&lt;/td&gt;
                    &lt;td style="text-align: center;"&gt;ARE YOU SURE?&lt;/td&gt;
                    &lt;td&gt;&lt;input type="button" id="erase" name="erase" value="ERASE ALL?" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
                &lt;/tr&gt;
                &lt;tr name="Update"&gt;
                    &lt;td&gt;Update Value&lt;/td&gt;
                    &lt;td&gt;
                        Entry ID: &lt;input type="text" id="updateAppID" name="updateAppID" placeholder="App entryID" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
                        Field Name: &lt;input type="text" id="fieldName" name="fieldName" placeholder="Field to change" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
                        New Value: &lt;input type="text" id="newValue" name="newValue" placeholder="New value" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
                    &lt;/td&gt;
                    &lt;td&gt;&lt;input type="button" id="update" name="update" value="Update Value" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
                &lt;/tr&gt;
                &lt;tr name="Delete"&gt;
                    &lt;td&gt;Delete Payment&lt;/td&gt;
                    &lt;td&gt;
                        Entry ID: &lt;input type="text" id="deleteAppID" name="deleteAppID" placeholder="App entryID" /&gt;
                    &lt;/td&gt;
                    &lt;td&gt;&lt;input type="button" id="delete" name="delete" value="Delete Entry" /&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
                &lt;/tr&gt;
            &lt;/table&gt;
            &lt;input type="hidden" id="buttonTypePressed" name="buttonTypePressed" /&gt;
            &lt;input type="submit" id="submit" name="submit" value="submit" style="position: absolute; left: -9999px; width: 1px; height: 1px;" tabindex="-1"/&gt;
        &lt;/form&gt;
    &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/body&gt;
</code></pre>

<p></p>