Accessing $_POST data sent by Jquery/AJAX

Question

I am using this function:

function end_incident() {
    var dataString = 'name=Daniel&phone=01234123456';
    $.ajax({
        type: "POST",
        url: "http://www.example.co.uk/erc/end_incident.php",
        data: dataString,
        success: function(msg){ 
            alert('Success!'+dataString);
        }
    });
};

to send information to end_incident.php, but I'm not able to access the $_POST variables. I've tried doing it like this:

$name = $_POST['name'];
$phone = $_POST['phone'];

Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for any help

Solution 1

Try sending the data as an object:

function end_incident() {
    $.ajax({
       type: "POST",
       url: "http://www.example.co.uk/erc/end_incident.php",
       data: { name: "Daniel", phone: "01234123456" },
       success: function(msg){ 
            alert('Success!');
       }
    });
};

Solution 2

Make sure the url your requesting for is within the same origin of your site, if it isn't, you've got a cross-site scripting issue. Only way around that:

• Getting "higher" access/priveledges within the browser, i.e. create an add-on/extension, or use Greasemonkey

• Use a proxy through your own site to get the request for the file:

  var getURL = "http://www.example.co.uk/erc/end_incident.php";
  $.ajax({
     type: "POST",
     url: "/get_url.php?url=" + encodeURIComponent(getURL),
     data: { name: "Daniel", phone: "01234123456" },
     success: function(msg){ 
         alert('Success!');
     }
  });
  

I recommend you add a error function to your ajax. It's suprising how many people just focus on success and never process an error!

error: function()
{
   console.log(arguments);
}

Comments

[Fidi]

Damn, wanted to post the same thing! You were faster :) +1

[kapa]

No, this won't make any difference. The data attribute can be set either as an object (in this case it will be converted to a query string) or as a string in the query string format. See here.

[Daniel H]

Hi Richard D thanks for your reply. I think the problem was that I missed a couple of apostrophies in my SQL query and its now working but I like the layout you've used better anyway so I'll use that :)

[Brian McCutchon]

+1 for error comment. But wouldn't it be a good idea to actually tell the user that an error occurred? You never know when your server or the user's WIFI might be down. alert("Could not connect to the server. Please check your network connection or try again later."); ...or something cleaner.