Pass href onclick variable to function in PHP - php

Question

I am trying to pass variables stored in href links to a function. Im able to define the variables from the query results. My problem is passing it to the function once the hyperlink is clicked. This is my code:
<?php
foreach($pdo->query('SELECT * FROM sk_courses ORDER BY courseID') as $row)
{
echo "<a href='#' onclick='hrefClick(".$row['courseID'].");'/>".$row['courseID']."</a><br>";
}
?>
This is the function:
<script>
function hrefClick($course){
$newCourse=$course;
}
</script>

Answer 1

PHP Code :
<?php
foreach($pdo->query('SELECT * FROM sk_courses ORDER BY courseID') as $row)
{
echo "<a href='#' onclick='hrefClick(".$row['courseID'].");'/>".$row['courseID']."</a><br>";
}
?>
Function should be as:
<script>
function hrefClick(course){
// You can't define php variables in java script as $course etc.
var newCourse=course;
alert(newCourse);
}
</script>

Answer 2

We will be using two file here. From file1.php onclicking the link we will send the data via Ajax to file2.php. It is a Jquery based solution.
//file1.php
<?php
foreach($pdo->query('SELECT * FROM sk_courses ORDER BY courseID') as $row){
echo '<a href="javascript:void()" data-href="'.$row['courseID'].'"/>'.$row['courseID'].'</a><br>';
}
?>
<script>
$('a').click(function(){
var hrefData = $(this).attr('data-href');
if (typeof hrefData !== typeof undefined && hrefData !== false) {
alert(hrefData);
//or You can post the data
$.post( "file2.php", { courseid:hrefData} );
}
});
</script>
You can retrieve the result on file2.php
//file2.php
<?php
if(isset($_POST['courseid'])){
$newCourse = $_POST['courseid'];
}
?>

Answer 3

I was able to find a way to get it done? It seems pretty straightforward. This is what I came up with.
<?php
foreach($pdo->query('SELECT * FROM sk_courses ORDER BY courseID') as $row){
echo "<form name='course".$row['courseID']."' action='index.php' method='GET'/>";
echo "<a href='javascript: document.course".$row['courseID'].".submit();'/>".$row['courseID']."</a>";
echo "<input type='hidden' name='courseID' value='".$row['courseID']."'/><br>";
echo "</form>";
}
?>