Question

What if you did:

$("#container").load("data.php?fname=" + firstname + "&lname=" + lastname);

Instead of:

$.ajax({
            url: 'data.php', 
            data: 'fname=' + firstname + '&lname=' + lastname,
            type: 'GET',

            success: function(data) {
                $("#container").html(data);

            }
        });

If all you were doing was echoing the data:

<?php
print_r($_GET);
?>

Sorry if I am not understanding something basic, but is there a reason to use one over the other if they both produce the same result?

Answer 1

Well, in the end, .load() uses $.ajax() to make the request.

The actual role of .load() is to set the content of the matched elements to the data received in case of a successful request. It also allows loading page fragment by appending a selector after the actualy url, like this:

$('#mydiv').load('page.html #extractMe');

The load() method executes a GET request by default. Note that the method takes an optionnal second parameter data to pass data. In this case, it executes a POST request.