Question

How would I go about pulling ‘&something=’ if there is no static value to pull? How would combine ‘commentBox’ and var id if that is a possible solution?

// process addComment()
jQuery(".textbox1").keydown(function(event) {
  var keyCode = event.keyCode || event.which;
  if (keyCode === 13) {
      addComment(this);
  }
});

function addComment() {
  var id = jQuery(e).attr("id");
  var newId = id.replace("commentBox-", "");
  var dataString = '&something=' + newId;
  // proceed with ajax call
}

Answer 1

Pass the current object (the textbox where the enter key was pressed) to the addComment function.

$(function(){
 $(".textbox1").keydown(function(event) {
  var item=$(this);
  var keyCode = event.keyCode || event.which;
  if (keyCode === 13) {
      addComment(item);
  }
});
  });
function addComment(item) {
  var id = item.attr("id");
  var newId = id.replace("commentBox-", "");
  var dataString = '&something=' + newId;
  alert(dataString );
}

JsFiddle Sample http://jsfiddle.net/YAQpc/8/