Getting data from PHP page on form submit - php

Question

I have index.php with a form. When it gets submitted I want the result from process.php to be displayed inside the result div on index.php. Pretty sure I need some kind of AJAX but I'm not sure...
index.php
<div id="result"></div>
<form action="" id="form" method="get">
<input type="text" id="q" name="q" maxlength="16">
</form>
process.php
<?php
$result = $_GET['q'];
if($result == "Pancakes") {
echo 'Result is Pancakes';
}
else {
echo 'Result is something else';
}
?>

Answer 1

You really don't "need" AJAX for this because you can submit it to itself and include the process file:
index.php
<div id="result">
<?php include('process.php'); ?>
</div>
<form action="index.php" id="form" method="get">
<input type="text" id="q" name="q" maxlength="16">
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
process.php
<?php
// Check if form was submitted
if(isset($_GET['submit'])){
$result = $_GET['q'];
if($result == "Pancakes") {
echo 'Result is Pancakes';
}
else {
echo 'Result is something else';
}
}
?>
Implementing AJAX will make things more user-friendly but it definitely complicates your code. So good luck with whatever route you take!
This is a jquery Ajax example,
<script>
//wait for page load to initialize script
$(document).ready(function(){
//listen for form submission
$('form').on('submit', function(e){
//prevent form from submitting and leaving page
e.preventDefault();
// AJAX goodness!
$.ajax({
type: "GET", //type of submit
cache: false, //important or else you might get wrong data returned to you
url: "process.php", //destination
datatype: "html", //expected data format from process.php
data: $('form').serialize(), //target your form's data and serialize for a POST
success: function(data) { // data is the var which holds the output of your process.php
// locate the div with #result and fill it with returned data from process.php
$('#result').html(data);
}
});
});
});
</script>

Answer 2

this is jquery Ajax example,
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "somescript.php",
datatype: "html",
data: dataString,
success: function(data) {
doSomething(data);
}
});

Answer 3

How about doing this in your index.php:
<div id="result"><?php include "process.php"?></div>

Answer 4

Two ways to do it.
Either use ajax to call your process.php (I'd recommend jQuery -- it's very easy to send ajax calls and do stuff based on the results.) and then use javascript to change the form.
Or have the php code that creates the form be the same php code that form submits to, and then output different things based on if there are get parameters. (Edit: MonkeyZeus gave you specifics on how to do this.)