Question

I have this AJAX request:

$("#searchagain_form").submit(function() { 
    $.ajax({
      type: 'POST',
      url: "/searchforward",
      data: {engine: $("#engine_options").find(".on_engine").text()}
    });
});

This is my form:

    <%= form_for :searchagain, :url => {:controller => 'results', :action => 'searchforward'}, :html => { :id => "searchagain_form" } do |f| %>
      <%= f.text_field :search, :value => @search, :id => 'searchagain_bar' %>
      <%= f.submit :value => "search!", :id => 'searchagain_submit'  %>
    <% end %>

However, checking my logs, the data does not seem to be POSTed to the server when the form is submitted. Any idea why?

Answer 1

You did not cancel the submission, so the page will unload instead of sending the ajax-request.
Append a return false; to the function.

But however, it’s not clear what kind of element #engine_options .on_engine is, if it is an text-input use val() instead of text() (text() should return nothing for text-inputs).

When it is a textarea it will return the textNode inside the element, not any later modified text. So use val() also for textarea.