Question

HTML/jQuery:

<a href=# id="friends">Friends</a>
<script type="text/javascript">
    $(document).ready(function() {
        $('a#friends').click(function() { 
            $.ajax({
                type: "POST",
                url: "data.php",
                data:  $('#friends').html(),
                success: function(data) {
                    $('#questions').html(data);
                },
                dataType: "HTML"
            });
        });
    });
</script>

data.php:

<?php
    echo $_POST['#friends'];
?>

How do I return this POST value of an id in an anchor tag? The variable is being passed to PHP because I can alert it, but the problem is getting it back.

Answer 1

You need to specify the name of the value you are sending across in your AJAX request. Try this:

$.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: "data.php",
    data:  { 'friends': $('#friends').html() }, // Note the value is sent in an object with a key of 'friends'
    success: function(data) {
        $('#questions').html(data);
    },
    dataType: "HTML"
});

<?php
    echo $_POST['friends']; // retrieve the 'friends' value
?>