Passing a variable from an AJAX form to PHP

[UsagiChan]

I'm trying to get this AJAX script to work:

 

<script type="text/javascript">

function ajaxFunction()

{

var xmlHttp;

try

{

// Firefox, Opera 8.0+, Safari

xmlHttp=new XMLHttpRequest();

}

catch (e)

{

// Internet Explorer

try

{

xmlHttp=new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");

}

catch (e)

{

try

{

xmlHttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");

}

catch (e)

{

alert("Your browser does not support AJAX!");

return false;

}

}

}

xmlHttp.onreadystatechange=function()

{

if(xmlHttp.readyState==4)

{

document.myForm.synonyms.value=xmlHttp.responseText;

}

}

var url="/scripts/syn_list.php" ;

xmlHttp.open("GET",url,true);

xmlHttp.send(null);

}

</script>

 

<form name="myForm">

Word: <input type="text" name="word" />

<input type="button" value="Go" onClick="ajaxFunction();"><br>

Synonyms:<br>

<textarea name="synonyms" cols="20" rows="10"></textarea>

</form>

 

It is calling this php program:

<? $incpath = ($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/includes/");

include($incpath . 'initialize.php');

 

$word = $url_array[3];

 

$query="SELECT * FROM syn_words WHERE word = '$word' " ;

$result = mysql_db_query($dbname, $query, $link) or die (email_error(__FILE__,__LINE__,mysql_errno(),mysql_error())) ;

$myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result);

$word_id = $myrow['word_id'] ;

 

$query="SELECT * FROM syn_synonyms WHERE word_id = '$word_id' ORDER BY synonym " ;

$result = mysql_db_query($dbname, $query, $link) or die (email_error(__FILE__,__LINE__,mysql_errno(),mysql_error())) ;

$n=0;

do {

if ($n > 0) {

echo $myrow['synonym'] . "\n" ;

}

$n = $n + 1 ;

} while ($myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result)) ;

 

if($n == "1") {

echo "No Synonyms" ;

}

 

The problem is to pass the variable "word" which the user types into the form to the PHP program. The PHP program gets synonyms from a database to what the user typed in.

 

Can this be done? If so, how ?

 

Thanks in advance

UsagiChan

[GodSmurf]

I'm extremely new so I'm probably way off but wouldn't it be better to use POST to send this and then you can just call the function that gets that value of word and then send it to the php file. I used a piece of script that was called makePOSTrequest that helped me. As I said I'm probably wrong but then there is that off chance that I may be right.

[UsagiChan]

Mr Moo on another forum solved this for me:

 

Put this in your url query string:

var url="/scripts/syn_list.php?word=" + document.forms['myForm'].word.value ;

 

I spent the last 2-16 hr days trying to figure that out. I know PHP pretty good but I'm obviously not very good with javascript.

 

UsagiChan