Having Multiple Variables in POST search? - php

Question

I'm trying to do a Jquery Ajax search with multiple conditions, and this is my first time. I did some research and found ways to send data to a php file, however it's only with one variable. I'm not sure how to implement all of my 6 variables into data: data.
here they are:
var FromDate
var ToDate
var MusicStyles
var Locations
var FromPrice
var ToPrice
Now here is where I got stuck, I should do a post with some data. When I have multiple variavbles, can I do data: dataFromDate, dataToDate, dataMusicStyles,?
$("#SearchButton").click(function() {
var dataFromDate = 'dataFromDate='+ FromDate;
var dataToDate = 'dataToDate='+ ToDate;
var dataMusicStyles = 'dataMusicStyles='+ MusicStyles;
var dataLocations = 'dataLocations='+ Locations;
var dataFromPrice = 'dataFromPrice='+ FromPrice;
var dataToPrice = 'dataToPrice='+ ToPrice;
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "do_search.php",
data: dataFromDate, dataToDate, dataMusicStyles, dataLocations, dataFromPrice, dataToPrice,
beforeSend: function(html) { // this happens before actual call
$("#results").html('');
$("#searchresults").show();
$(".word").html(searchString);
},
success: function(html){ // this happens after we get results
$("#results").show();
$("#results").append(html);
}
});
});
Where the MySQL would look like this:
<?php
//if we got something through $_POST
if (isset($_POST['dataFromDate'])) {
include('db.php');
$db = new db();
// never trust what user wrote! We must ALWAYS sanitize user input
$word = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['search']);
$word = htmlentities($word);
// build your search query to the database
$sql = "SELECT
events.ID,
events.EVENT_NAME,
events.start_datetime,
events.end_datetime,
events.VENUE_LOCATION,
events.ENTRANCE_PRICE,
venues.VENUE_NAME,
GROUP_CONCAT(music_styles.MUSIC_STYLE_NAME) AS MUSIC_STYLE_NAME
FROM events
INNER JOIN venues
ON events.VENUE_LOCATION = venues.ID
INNER JOIN events_music_styles
ON events.ID = events_music_styles.event_id
INNER JOIN music_styles
ON events_music_styles.music_style_id = music_styles.id
WHERE start_datetime >= '$phpFromDate'
AND end_datetime <= '$phpToDate'
AND ENTRANCE_PRICE >= '$phpFromPrice'
AND ENTRANCE_PRICE <= '$phpToPrice'
GROUP BY events.ID";
// get results
$row = $db->select_list($sql);
if(count($row)) {
$end_result = '';
foreach($row as $r) {
$result = $r['title'];
// we will use this to bold the search word in result
$bold = '<span class="found">' . $word . '</span>';
$end_result .= '<li>' . str_ireplace($word, $bold, $result) . '</li>';
}
echo $end_result;
} else {
echo '<li>No results found</li>';
}
}
?>
I am 100% certain that it doesn't work like this, but I think I got it almost right. I would love it if someone could at least please let me know what I could do to fix the code.
Thanks!

Answer 1

You send it as an object, like so:
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "do_search.php",
data: {dataFromDate : FromDate,
dataToDate : ToDate,
dataMusicStyles : MusicStyles,
dataLocations : Locations,
dataFromPrice : FromPrice,
dataToPrice : ToPrice
},
beforeSend: function(html) { // this happens before actual call
$("#results").html('');
$("#searchresults").show();
$(".word").html(searchString);
},
success: function(html) { // this happens after we get results
$("#results").show();
$("#results").append(html);
}
});​
Where the firs value is the key, and the second is the value, so {key: value} would be accessed on the server as $_POST['key'], which your values would be accessed the way you seem to want :
$_POST['dataFromDate']
Also, you don't need all those variables at the start, just use them directly in the object.

Answer 2

Try to concatenate your strings with a "," and explode them on the server.