Question

I have this:

   <form action="profiles.php" method="POST" name="SearchSimple" id="SearchSimple" >
<input name="search" id="s" style="width: 150px;" type="text">
        <a style="display: inline-block; width: 100px; font-weight: bold; cursor: pointer;" id="submitSearchSimple">Search </a>
            <script>
                        $('#submitSearchSimple').click(function() {
    javascript:document.SearchSimple.submit();
        });
            </script>
</form>

It submits fine although when i do

if($_POST["submitSearchSimple"] && isset($_POST["submitSearchSimple"])) {
echo $_POST["s"] . " -TEST";
}

It doesnt show.. I get nothing

Answer 1

In PHP, POST variables work only for INPUT elements, SELECT elements & that too in a FORM, only when the form is submitted. Also you need to specify the “name” attribute of those elements to be catched / used by the POST superglobal array variable.

In your case, you can simply do this:-
if(isset($_POST["search"]) && !empty($_POST["search"])) {
    echo $_POST["search"] . " -TEST";
}

Always remember that there is one major difference in PHP with JavaScript / jQuery. In JavaScript / jQuery, you can use either the “id” attribute or the “name” attribute to validate / manipulate the fields. But in PHP, it is always the “name” attribute of the field that is important, so be careful in doing those.

Hope it helps.