Question

So ill start off with my code:

$(function() {
$("#employeeName").keyup(function() {
    var dataString = 'find='+ $("#employeeName").val();  
    //alert (dataString);return false;
    $.ajax({
        type: "POST",
        url: "finduser.php",
        data: dataString,
        success: function(response) {
            //On success
            $("#search").html(response);
        }
    });
    return false;
 });
});

That is my ajax to search for an employees name

My html looks similar to this:

<input type='text' id='employeeName' name='employeeName'>
<select id='search' name='id'></select>
<input type='submit'>

Basically, it searches the database and returns <option>‘s with the user’s id as the value, and their name as the name, example: <option value='5'>John Doe</option>

And this all works great, except that when I select a name and submit the form, it doesn’t send the updated option that the person selected, it just sends a blank select(So $_POST['id'] doesn’t exist and throws an error.

How else could I make this work? I tried adding onchange="$('#employeeName').val($(this).val())" to the select so that when they select a name it updates the search box and they can submit the form that way, but that was to no avail..

Answer 1

If $_POST['id'] doesn’t exist, then your option likely doesn’t have a value.

If $('#search').val() yields an integer, but it isn’t there when you submit the form, then either your <select> is not a part of the form, or the value gets updated on submit, or you’re submitting a GET request, so that your value is available through $_GET['id'].

1. Verify that your form has the following attribute: method="POST"
2. Verify that $('#the-form').serialize() contains “id=5”.