Question

I’m going a little crazy here as I’m at a real loss for words what is happening. After a lot of digging around, I believe I am doing everything as should be.

Situation

I’m trying to send a user creation form to the server via AJAX and codeIgniter fails to even get past this part

if($this->input->post('blnAjax')) { // do something }
I have successfully incorporated the AJAX side of things in to the client as it fetches content from the server with very little problem. Here are some of the details involved in the call:

Ajax code

The ajax code is part of a much larger framework beyond the scope of this question but in terms of the actual call function, the event has event.preventDefault(); event.stopImmediatePropagation(); to stop it running off. The URL is reachable and the post values have been serialized with request type set to POST

requestpage: function(){
    var strURL = params.strBaseURL + params.strRequestURL;
    $.ajax({
        type: params.strRequestMethod,
        url: strURL,
        data: params.strRequestParameters,
        dataType: 'json',
        success: function(json) {
            methods.postrequestprocedure(json);
        }  
    });
},

Ajax request

Everything runs smoothly on the client making the XMLHttpRequest with json as expected return. I don’t even get to this point when the form has been submitted however. Codeigniter will never think the form has been set if using AJAX

Parameters application/x-www-form-urlencoded
blnAjax 1
user_login_name[]   fred
user_login_name[]   ted
user_name[] Fred Flintstone
user_name[] Ted bear
usergroup_id[]  16
usergroup_id[]  16

Controller

On the controller, with regard to the action, I have included alall code up to the point of fail. Please note that I have tested the other aspects of the code and they run fine

public function user_add() {
/* Include extra script files needed for form handling */
$this->view['aryScript'][] = 'jquery.validate.min';
$this->view['aryScript'][] = 'jquery.validate.additional-methods';

/* Include extra CSS files */
$this->view['aryCSS'][] = 'form';
/* First check if the user has correct access rights */
if($this->view['intAccessLevel'] < INT_SUPER_USER_ACCESS_LEVEL) {
    $aryResponse['notifications'][] = array('strType' => 'permanent',
                                        'strMessage' => 'Denied!');
}

/* Import extra libraries and helpers */
$this->load->library(array('PasswordHash'));
$this->load->model('UserAdminModel');

$this->view['strTitle'] = 'Add User';
$this->view['aryButtons']['user_add_another'] = array(
     'strDisplay' => $this->lang->line('user_add_another')
     'strURL' => '#',
     'strID' => 'user_add_another',
     'aryData' => array('action' => 'form-clone')
);

if($this->input->post('blnAjax')) {
    echo 'Big sigh of relief';

Thank you kindly for taking the time to read my problem

Answer 1

The answer is never as simple as it seems! My client is using a CodeIgniter mod that rewrites the URI and thus dumping the data passed from the ajax query. It hadn’t been a problem when performing gets and "real" POST queries.

So if you are ever using Wiredesignz – Language Identifier beware that it can affect your queries

How I fixed it, I use a custom page controller but the theory is the same:

• Be sure that you have $this->config->item('language_abbr'); available to your javascript functions maybe through a constant or echo it directly in to the javascript if on the same page
• Modify the URL before sending it with something similar to params.strBaseURL + params.strLanguage + '/' + params.strRequestURL;

You should now find things work just fine. I hope this helps and noone else has to spend a mini eternity to find this out