Adding Item to Database in Laravel with AJAX and then showing Item - php

Question

After hours of Googling, I can't seem to find an answer to this seemingly simple problem. I can't add data to a database and show that data without refreshing the page. My goal is to be able to create an object from a form to upload to a database, and then show all the items in database (without the page refreshing). I have tried to get AJAX working many times, but I can't seem to do that. The application works by adding stars to students, so basically I would want to be able to update a students star count without reloading the page. But right now I can't even console.log the submitted form data. My Controller code is like so:
public function addStar(){
$id = Input::get('id');
$user_id = Input::get('user_id');
if(Auth::user()->id == $user_id){
Student::addStar($id);
}
return Redirect::back();
}
And my form:
{{Form::open(array('action'=>'HomeController#addStar','id'=>'addStar','method'=>'post'))}}
{{ Form::hidden('id', $student->id, array('id'=>'id_value')) }}
{{ Form::hidden('user_id', $student->user_id, array('id'=>'user_id_value'))}}
{{ Form::submit('+')}}
{{ Form::close() }}
And my extremely poor attempts at AJAX:
$('#addStar').on('submit',function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
cache: false,
dataType: 'JSON',
url: '/addstar',
data: $('#addStar').serialize(),
success: function(data) {
console.log(data);
},
});
return false;
});
The code works fine if I settle for allowing page reloads, but I don't want that. So essentially, my question is, how do I add data to a database and show it without the page reloading? Thanks so much!

Answer 1

Your controller is doing a redirect after the logic, ajax won't be able to do anything with the response. A one take would be, after adding a start returning the new star rating.
public function addStar(){
$id = Input::get('id');
$user_id = Input::get('user_id');
if(Auth::user()->id == $user_id){
Student::addStar($id);
}
$star_count = //get new star count;
return Response::json(['star_count' => $star_count]);
}
Since controller now returns a json response, the success callback on $.ajax can grab it and do something (update the star count).

Answer 2

#codeforfood,
If you want to grab the response and show it immediately in the page without a reload then you may go with returning a JSON reponse and then handle that response at the client side Javascript for Success or Failure conditions.
Can try something like this if you want:
In the controller addStar() method response:
$data = ['star_count' => 'COUNT OF STARS'];
return json_encode($data);
In the View for that specific Star Div:
<script>
$('#stardiv).on('submit', function (e) {
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: "{{URL::to('xxxxx')}}",
data: $(this).serialize(),
dataType: "JSON",
success: function (data) {
Handle the success condition here, you can access the response data through data['star_count']
},
error: function (data) {
Handle the error condition here, may be show an alert of failure
}
});
return false;
});
</script>
After all this is just one approach, you may try different one which ever suits your need.