Form validation not working when using Ajax - php

Question

I'm currently using ajax to auto-save a form. Codeigniter's form validation function doesn't seems to be working when using ajax. Anyone knows whats the problem here?
PHP:
function autoSavePublicationDetails()
{
$this->form_validation->set_rules('first_author', 'First author', 'required');
if ($this->form_validation->run() == FALSE)
{
$data['message'] = validation_errors();
}
else
{
$newRow = json_decode($_POST['json']);
$claim_id = $_POST['claim_id'];
//$this->publicationClaim_model->updateClaim($newRow,$claim_id);
//$data['claim_id'] = $claim_id;
$data['message'] = "Success";
}
print json_encode($data);
}
Jquery:
setInterval(function(){
var date = new Date();
var dateFormat = date.getFullYear() + "-" + ("0" + date.getMonth()).slice(-2) + "-" + ("0" + date.getDate()).slice(-2) + " " + ("0" + date.getHours()).slice(-2) + ":" + ("0" + date.getMinutes()).slice(-2) + ":" + ("0" + date.getSeconds()).slice(-2);
var claimObj = {
first_author : $('#first_author').val(),
authors : $('#authors').val(),
publication_title : $('#publication_title').val(),
source : $('#source').val(),
publication_submitted : $('#publication_submitted :selected').val(),
research_bank_number : $('#research_bank_number').val(),
research_code_1 : $('#research_code_1 :selected').val(),
research_code_2 : $('#research_code_2 :selected').val(),
research_code_3 : $('#research_code_3 :selected').val(),
issn : $('#issn').val(),
type_of_publication : $('#type_of_publication :selected').val(),
claim_type : $('input[name="claim_type"]').val(),
claim_author : $('input[name="claim_author"]').val(),
claim_date : dateFormat,
user_id : $('input[name="user_id"]').val()
};
var json_data = JSON.stringify(claimObj);
var className;
$.post("autoSavePublicationDetails",
{
'<?php echo $this->security->get_csrf_token_name(); ?>':'<?php echo $this->security->get_csrf_hash(); ?>',
'json' : json_data,
'claim_id' : $('#claim_id').val()
},
function(data,status){
console.log("Status: " + status);
var jsonReturn = $.parseJSON(data);
alert(jsonReturn.message);
if (jsonReturn.message == "Success")
{
className = 'label label-success';
$('#message').addClass(className);
$('#message').text('Data saved.');
}
else
{
className = 'label label-danger';
$('#message').addClass(className);
$('#message').text('Form not saved.');
}
$('#message').fadeIn();
setTimeout(function() {
$('#message').fadeOut();
$('message').removeClass()
}, 1000);
});
}, 10000);
I tried alerting the validation errors. It says that my first_author field is empty even when I already entered the some text inside.
Json that is passed to controller:

Answer 1

instead of $.post() try to use $.ajax()