Question

I don’t understand. I have searched all internet forums but found nothing helpful. I am trying to update the numberOfLikes field on my postsTable in MySql when the user clicks on the like button. I know this is done through ajax but I am only familiar with prototype ajax and none internet forums state anything about it.

Here’s the flow chart

1. On "seeForums.php" user clicks on the "like" link.
2. The like link has an id that triggers the function which updates numberOfLikes on my postsTable.

Thats it. Thats all I need. But I need it in a prototype ajax format, something like this.

   function processLikes()
   {  
      new Ajax.Request(theUrl,
      { 
     contentType:"text/HTML",
     onSuccess:updateLikesMySql,
     onFailure:error
     onException:error,

    });
  }

Helps are appreciated 🙂

Answer 1

You can’t do this with Javascript alone as it is client side only, you’ll need to get a server side language (e.g. PHP) involved as well.

The idea is that you send an AJAX request to your PHP file along with the data that you want to update, and your PHP file will handle inserting values into the database. That PHP file would then print an output (e.g. success or failure) which would be received in your Javascript so you can act accordingly.