Supposing the form is the direct parent you can do:
<a href='#' onclick='this.parentNode.submit(); return false;'>submit</a>
If not you can access through the forms name attribute like this:
<a href='#' onclick='document.forms["myform"].submit(); return false;'>submit</a>
See both examples here: http://jsfiddle.net/WEZDC/1/
in my opinion the easiest way would be somthing like this:
<?php>
echo '<a href="link.php?submit='.$value.'">Submit</a>';
</?>
within the "link.php" you can request the value like this:
$_REQUEST['submit']
Try something like below
<a href="#" onclick="this.forms['formName'].submit()">Submit</a>
This is an improve of @ComFreek ans:
<form id="myform">
<!-- form elements -->
<a href="javascript:;" onclick="document.getElementById('myform').submit()">Submit</a>
</form>
So the will not trigger action and reload your page. Specially if your are developing with a framework with SPA.
Try this code:
<form id="myform">
<!-- form elements -->
<a href="#" onclick="document.getElementById('myform').submit()">Submit</a>
</form>
But users with disabled JavaScript won't be able to submit the form, so you could add the following code:
<noscript>
<input type="submit" value="Submit form!" />
</noscript>
Source: Stackoverflow.com