How to pass variable to php script from Jquery $(document).ready function - php

Question

I am building a chat. I have this Jquery working code which calls logs.php every second and refreshes the chat.
$(document).ready(
function(e) {
$.ajaxSetup({cache:false});
setInterval(function() {
$('#chatlogs').load('logs.php');
updateScroll();
}, 1000);
}
);
As you can see, also updateScroll, a JS function on my page, gets called. Updatescroll creates a variable, which I would like to pass on to logs.php, is there any way to do this? In other words, updatescroll basically checks everysecond if the user has scrolled up to the top of the chat. If so, I am gonna tell logs.php to load -say - another 10 messages. But in order to do this, I have to have something that from updatescroll passes on to the Jquery function and thus onto logs.php. You get it? Thanks

Answer 1

First, when it comes to ajax, I would recommend using a window.setTimeout, intervals can get tricky when you are running things asynchronously (if one call hangs you can end up with multiple calls to the same script).
so something more like:
(function($){
var update_messages = function(){
var count = updateScroll();
$('#chatlogs').load('logs.php?count='+count, function(){
window.setTimeout(update_messages, 1000);
});
}
$(document).ready(function(){
$.ajaxSetup({cache:false});
update_messages();
});
})(jQuery);
Then in your PHP script the "count" would be available via $_GET['count'].
EDIT: you can see an anonymous function is being sent as a second argument to load, this will be called AFTER the AJAX call is complete, so we can make sure only 1 of these is running at a time