Question

what way should I structure my files when doing Jquery AJAX requests in PHP.

i.e.

• showRecords.htm – contains jQuery/AJAX that gets data (HTML) from the php file below.
• showRecords.php – contains php that does some processing, likely to get data from DB and echo some HTML.

or

one file:

• showRecords.php – contains the JQuery/AJAX and is the php file and requests data from itself.

also you clever people out there, please note I am a beginner in JQuery
and AJAX so please forgive me if its a silly question or trivial.

Answer 1

Obviously not: one file.

I’d do it this way:

• showRecords.php – form processing, db requests
• templates/showSomeHtml.php – displays everything that your users can see
• showRecords.js – jQuery/AJAX that gets data

And if the jQuery/Ajax modifies the HTML, you could also move that (the dynamic HTML) into the templates (read about javascript templates)