I'm sending data via ajax (jquery) to php where it will be processed. I'd like to return a value from the php script, but I'm not sure how.

How do I return the result back?

$(document).ready(function() {  //This script sends var Score to php
        Score=100; //Dummy variable
            $.ajax({  
            type: "POST",  
            url: "returnresults.php",  
            data: { 'Score':Score },      
            success: function(){  
            $('#box2').html(Score);
            } 
        })
    }); 

Very simple PHP CODE

<?php
$Score=$_POST['Score']; 
       if (isset($_POST['Score'])) { 
       $Score=80;
} 
?>

I'm sending data via ajax (jquery) to php where it will be processed. I'd like to return a value from the php script, but I'm not sure how.

How do I return the result back?

$(document).ready(function() {  //This script sends var Score to php
        Score=100; //Dummy variable
            $.ajax({  
            type: "POST",  
            url: "returnresults.php",  
            data: { 'Score':Score },      
            success: function(){  
            $('#box2').html(Score);
            } 
        })
    }); 

Very simple PHP CODE

<?php
$Score=$_POST['Score']; 
       if (isset($_POST['Score'])) { 
       $Score=80;
} 
?>

• php
• javascript
• jquery
• ajax

• Thanks for your replies everyone! I've got to duck out for a bit, but I'll go over them all as soon as I get back tonight.Thanks! – TryHarder Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 7:39

3 Answers 3

Your PHP page should output the html or text that you want returned, so at its simplest perhaps add this to the end of your PHP:

echo $Score;

If you want to pre-format it a bit within your PHP then:

echo "<div>" . $Score . "</div>";

Where you can make the html markup as simple or plicated as appropriate (the <div> in this case being just an example, obviously).

Then your jQuery ajax call will automatically pass the response through as a parameter to your success handler, so:

$.ajax({  
    type: "POST",  
    url: "returnresults.php",  
    data: { 'Score':Score },      
    success: function(data){ // <-- note the parameter here, not in your code
       $('#box2').html(data);
    } 
});

(data will be the response).

Note: if you know that the only thing you want to do with the response from the ajax call is to take the data/text/html and put it into a particular element you can simplify things by just using the jquery .load() method instead of $.ajax():

$('#box2').load("returnresults.php", { 'Score':Score });

Check the documentation. In particular with respect to the success handler function:

success(data, textStatus, jqXHR)

A function to be called if the request succeeds. The function gets passed three arguments: The data returned from the server, formatted according to the dataType parameter; a string describing the status; and the jqXHR (in jQuery 1.4.x, XMLHttpRequest) object.

So jQuery will pass three parameters to your success function. The first one contains the data that you want. If you just want to pass exactly what the server returns on into your success handler, you can do:

$(document).ready(function() {  //This script sends var Score to php
        $.ajax({  
        type: "POST",  
        url: "returnresults.php",  
        data: { 'Score':Score },  
        dataType: "text",    //set the dataType to 'text' so that jQuery passes it verbatim
        success: function(newScore){  //the first parameter will contain the response the server sent, we ignore the other two parameters in this example
            $('#box2').html(newScore);
        } 
    })
}); 

And then in your PHP code, just write the desired value straight to the response.

$(document).ready(function() {  //This script sends var Score to php
    Score=100; //Dummy variable
        $.ajax({  
        type: "POST",  
        url: "returnresults.php",  
        data: { 'Score':Score },      
        success: function(response){
            alert(response);
            $('#box2').html(Score);
        } 
    })
});