[RESOLVED] a tricky one this, dont know if it is even possible

chris_davies

Hello peeps,

I have been working on something using PHP and AJAX, where AJAX performs a Google Suggest sort of action. What I want to know now is, can a web form perform 2 seperate actions depending on the result of the first action.

Please let me elaborate. The PHP/MYSQL/AJAX code I am using is dynamically populating a list on letter at a time (like google suggest) depending on what the user types into the input box and thus the current form action is already set to a suggest.php file. When the user clicks on one of the names in the list, the name automatically populates the input box and now I want to be able to click the submit button to retrieve new data (a new action to a new file) and echo it to the page. Is it possible to assign an action type event to a submit button? and if not is there a work around?

if anyone could help me with this they would immediately become my hero ;O) thanks for any help that may be available.

Chris

drew010

i'm not 100% sure i am gonna address your issue correctly, so forgive me if im wrong here, but I think i know what you are after.

with the submit button in a form, or it wouldnt even have to be in a form if you weren't going to use it to submit data you can use the onclick event to run some javascript code to use your other ajax function

i.e.

<input type="submit" value="Search" onclick="doSearch(); return false" />

//somewhere else

function doSearch()
{
  var xml = new XmlHttpRequest();

  var s = escape(document.getElementById('yoursearchbox').value);

  xml.open('post', 'apage', true);
  // etc etc
}

essentially this will call the js function doSearch when they click the submit button. then in there you can run any js code and do your ajax stuff to the server to run the search and then populate a div or something with the results.

chris_davies

Hmmm, I thought this would be awkward. Here is some of the code, then my explanation:

As you can see above the text from the input button is used to search for an item from a table, could be a name anything, onkeyup() calls a javascript ajax routine that echoes anything in the table that may correspond to what a user enters into the input box. what I'm trying to achieve with the submit button is send the data from the input box to displayResult.php which displays the result of the first search (which came via sarchSuggest,php). I was hoping the onclick event for the submit button would do the job but it doesn't. Makes your head hurt don't it.

Not quite basically, the contents of the input box depends on the result achieved by the user typing one letter at a time and the data is listed dynamically into a div like google suggest. For instance the names DAVIES and DAWSON, when the user types D the names DAVIES and DAWSON appear in a <div> and the user clicks on either name and fully populates the input box.

It is now that I want to click the submit button and use the full name as a new search criteria.

Ouch my eyes are bleeding just reading that ;O)

I really need a workaround for this, please , please help. thanks muchly in advance for any help guys.

Chris

drew010

gotcha...try this as a replacement for the code you posted.

<form id="frmSearch" action="searchSuggest.php">
<input type="text" id="txtSearch" name="txtSearch" alt="Search Criteria" onkeyup="searchSuggest();" autocomplete="off"/>
<input type="submit" id="cmdSearch" name="cmdSearch" value="Search" alt="Run Search" onclick="window.location = 'displayResult.php?' + document.getElementById(\'txtSearch\').value; return false;" /><br />
<div id="search_suggest">

alternatively, i think you could just use this:

<form id="frmSearch" method="get" action="displayResult.php">
<input type="text" id="txtSearch" alt="Search Criteria" onkeyup="searchSuggest();" autocomplete="off"/>
<input type="submit" id="cmdSearch" name="cmdSearch" value="Search" alt="Run Search" /><br />
<div id="search_suggest">

chris_davies

Almost there, I can actually get to the next page now but it still won't carry the contents of the input box. Thanks for the reply though, it is greatly appreciated. I am now 50% further than I was before 😮)

thanks again
Chris

drew010

do you have a testing url it is at? if you need i could look into it further and find a solution perhaps.

chris_davies

Hi again, I have had another go at this, your first example appears to POST the data across
as this example in the search bar:

http://localhost/mysql_client/SimpleSuggest/displayResult.php?davies

but the search result is not being picked up by the PHP.
As a test, I always echo the POST to the screen, just to see if the variable has been POSTed over, but in this case, although it appears in the search bar, it is not actually being POSTed if you know what I mean, isn't the code just opening a new page with the contents of txtSearch tagged on the end? How can I get the value of "txtSearch" as a variable.
I have already tried:
$var = $_POST{'txtSearch'];
which I would have though would have worked. hmmmmm head work lol

Any further ideas would be extremely cool and well appreciated

Chirs

chris_davies

feel really silly now, had GET in the form, and POST in the recieving PHP script.
Been staring at this too long me thinks. But thanks immensely for your help. You are a definite hero ;O)

Chris