Jquery load() and PHP variables

Question

If I load a PHP page with Jquery .load(file.php), can the included file use the php variables that were defined on the page that called the load()?

Answer 1

No, you have to pass the variables you want to use to your file.php:

$('#yourdiv').load('file.php?var1=xyz&var2=xyz&var3=xyz');

And then you can GET those in your file.php:

$var1 = $_GET['var1'];
$var2 = $_GET['var2'];
$var3 = $_GET['var3'];

If there are a lot of variables then use the POST method:

$('#yourdiv').load('file.php', {var1:x, var2:y, var3:z})

And then get the variables in file.php:

$var1 = $_POST['var1'];
$var2 = $_POST['var2'];
$var3 = $_POST['var3'];

Answer 2

You're misunderstanding how things work.

• PHP runs before any browser response is issued to the client, and all code runs on the server. The variables declared in your PHP file are destroyed after all the PHP code has been run; they "vanish."
• JavaScript runs after the browser response has begun, and all code runs on the client. By "loading" the output result of the PHP file, you won't get any access to PHP's variables, only the output.

If you want to transfer certain variables from PHP to JavaScript, you could dump some output into JSON in your PHP script, like so:

<?PHP
    header("Content-Type: application/json");

    $myVariable = "hello world";

    echo json_encode(array(array("myVariable" => $myVariable)));

    /* Output looks like this:
       [
           {
               "myVariable": "hello world"
           }
       ]
    */
?>

Your JavaScript/JSON should look something like this:

$.getJSON("test.php", function(result) {
    console.log(result[0].myVariable);
});

Does that make sense?

Answer 3

Yes, use the data parameter, see http://api.jquery.com/load/:

$('#someelement').load(
    "test.php", 
    {
        'key1': '<?php echo $value1; ?>',
        'key2': '<?php echo $value2; ?>'
    } 
);

The parameters are posted to the file test.php and are accessible as:

$_POST['key1']
$_POST['key2']