Question

When a user submits a form I want ajax to check if the email address exists using the following

$.post("checkemail.php", {email: email})

Depending on the value I will choose to submit or not (preventdefault)

However the form is submitting before returning the value.
I have tried the following:

$.when($.post("inc/checkemail.php", {email: email})).done(function(result) {
 // code here
}

However I can’t seem to get this right. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for any help in advance, you guys are always great!

Answer 1

Stopping the default behavior should always happen regardless of what the post returns. Only on ‘done’ should you decide to submit the form:

$('form').on('submit', function(e) { 
  e.preventDefault()
  $.post('checkemail.php', {email: email})
  .done( function(result){
    // check response to see if the email does not exist
    $('form').off('submit') // We don't want to stop the submission anymore.
    $('form').submit()
  })
})

edit: Also, note that $.post returns a type of deferred object, so the $.when call is unnecessary.