JavaScript form submits, but post data not available in PHP - php

Question

It seems the form submits (to the same page - contact.php), but I can not use posted data, for example $_POST["message"] . seems they are empty (I tried to echo them and nothing printed out).
This is JavaScript (in head section of page):
$(document).ready(function (){
$('#contactform').submit(function(){
var action = $(this).attr('action');
$.post("contact.php", {
name: $('#name').val(),
email: $('#email').val(),
company: $('#company').val(),
subject: $('#subject').val(),
message: $('#message').val()
}, function(data,status){
alert("status = " + status);
$('#contactform #submit').attr('disabled','');
if(data=='Message sent!') $('#contactform').slideUp();
});
return false;
});
});
this is form:
<form action="contact.php" method="post" id="contactform">
<ol>
<li>
<label for="name">First Name *</label>
<input name="name" id="name" class="text">
</li>
<li>
<label for="email">Your e-mail *</label>
<input id="email" name="email" class="text">
</li>
<li>
<label for="company">Company Name</label>
<input id="company" name="company" class="text">
</li>
<li>
<label for="subject">Subject<br>
</label>
<input id="subject" name="subject" class="text">
</li>
<li>
<label for="message">Message *</label>
<textarea id="message" name="message" rows="6" cols="50"></textarea>
</li>
<li class="buttons">
<input type="image" name="submitbtn" id="submitbtn" src="images/but_send_message.gif">
</li>
</ol>
</form>
The alert("status = " + status); section on javascript pops up the status as sucess.
UPDATED
And this is PHP part at the top of contact.php
<?php
if(isset($_POST["message"])){
echo '<script>alert("some dummy text");</script>';
};
?>
It is not just that echo does not print anything, but I can not access values from posted data. PHPMailer works fine with manually assigned text to parameters.

Answer 1

If $_POST returns empty data. Make sure that you don't have any htaccess causing this.
I had this problem once. My htaccess always emptied the post data. After modifying the htaccess I got my problem solved.

Answer 2

Just try this code to post the form and check will getting $_POST on contact.php or not
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function (){
$("#submitbtn").click(function(){
$("#contactform").attr("action" , "contact.php");
$("#contactform").submit();
});
</script>
If in contact.php if you get $_POST then show success message
<?php
if(isset($_POST["message"])){
echo '<script>alert("some dummy text");</script>';
};
?>

Answer 3

Since you asked for the answer that was a comment
Well, it seems fine, but alternatively you can try
$('#contactform').serialize();
to get all the form values for you and since you asked that, what is the better way to determine that the form has been submitted, well, in this case you can check the submit button instead of a text box or other form fields that could be left empty, so you can ue
if( isset( $_POST['submitbtn'] ) ) {
// process the form
}

Answer 4

Do the Following:
1) provide an id or a class to the li class button's child's input tag
2) Then in jquery write a code to handle :
$('.inputButton').click(function(){
var data = $('#contactform').serializeArray();
$.each(data, function(key, field) {
// Perform your validations over the data here
console.log('field Name == '+field.name+', field value == '+field.value);
});
// Make an ajax call using this data
$.post("contact.php", data, function(returnData) {
// Handle your code for after form submission response
});
});
3) Then in PHP you can get values as :
$name = $_POST["name"]; // and so on...
Hope this helps you solve your problem

Answer 5

as Sheikh heera mentioned in his comment on my question, I tried this:
$(document).ready(function (){
$('#contactform').serialize(function(){
var action = $(this).attr('action');
$.post("contact.php", {
name: $('#name').val(),
email: $('#email').val(),
company: $('#company').val(),
subject: $('#subject').val(),
message: $('#message').val()
}, function(data,status){
$('#contactform #submit').attr('disabled','');
if(data=='Message sent!') $('#contactform').slideUp();
});
return false;
});
});
and it works fine now! thanks to other users that suggested alternate solutions which may be working on this case but as I found the solution, there is no need to check them.

Answer 6

Save your post values in a variable. For example:
$name = $_POST["name"];
You can echo this variable in your script:
var name ="<?php echo $name; ?>";