Question

I’m pulling my hair out with this bug, although I’m sure it’s something obvious. Apologies if it is.

The following javascript successfully sets my cookie:

<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
    $.post('../setCookie.php',{'region':'test'});
});
</script>

But as soon as I tie the same code to an onclick event, like so…

<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
    $("#us a").click(function(){
        $.post('../setCookie.php',{'region':'en-us'});
    });
    $("#uk a").click(function(){
        $.post('../setCookie.php',{'region':'en-gb'});
    });
});
</script>

<ul>
    <li id="uk"><a href="http://www.example.com/uk">
        <span>Enter UK site</span></a></li>
    <li id="us"><a href="http://www.example.com/us">
        <span>Enter US site</span></a></li>
</ul>

..it no longer sets a cookie! Even though the same code is called an executed in exactly the same way (I step through it fine, and see everything as it’s supposed to be).

Repeat: The javascript is firing fine. I am stepping through setCookie.php and everything is the same… except no cookie at the end of it.

What’s going on? I’m guessing it’s browser security or something?

---

For anyone who’s interested, here’s how I solved it:

<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
$("#us a").click(function(e){
    e.preventDefault();
    $.post('../setCookie.php',{'region':'en-us'},
        function() {
            window.location = "http://www.example.com/us";
        }
    );
});

$("#uk a").click(function(e){
    e.preventDefault();
    $.post('../setCookie.php',{'region':'en-gb'},
        function() {
            window.location = "http://www.example.com/uk";
        }
    );
});
});
</script>

Answer 1

I don’t see anything stopping the normal link click going through? If you have nothing preventing the normal a href to go through, there won’t be any time to do the $.post request before the page changed already.

Try the following:

$(document).ready(function(){
    $('a').click(function(e){
        e.preventDefault();
        $.post('../setCookie.php',{'region':'test'});
    });
});

It will stop the page change for links, but at least should pass the cookie. Now, if you want the page to be loaded as well, then add a onComplete method to the request, so that once the cookie data has been succesfully sent, you can then continue the page change.