Running php from list element - php

Question

I have a list on one of my website pages that acts like a delete button, however I was wondering if you could call a php script when the user clicks on it, a bit like a submit button.
Here is the list:
<li>
<a class="actions_dropdown" href="#"> </a>
<ul class="actions_content">
<li>Delete</li>
<li>Report</li>
<li>Mark as Read</li>
<li>Mark as Unread</li>
<li>Move to Folder 1</li>
<!----whole loop of folders--->
</ul>
</li>
Is there anyway so when the user clicks on, say the delete li that it calls a php script? I can't seem to work it out.

Answer 1

assign a class to your Delete li like
<li><a class="actions_dropdown" href="#"> </a>
<ul class="actions_content">
<li class="del">Delete</li>
<li>Report</li>
<li>Mark as Read</li>
<li>Mark as Unread</li>
<li>Move to Folder 1</li>
<!----whole loop of folders--->
</ul>
</li>
now attach a click event handler to the li with class del
$("li.del").click(function(e){
var db = $(':checkbox:checked').map(function(i,n) {
return $(n).val();
}).get(); //get converts it to an array
if(db.length == 0) {
db = "none";
}
$.post('/test.php',{'db[]':db},function(data){
console.log(data);//it should log data deleted successfully
});
});
in test.php
<?php
//delete logic here
echo json_encode("data deleted successfully");
?>
Post array of multiple checkbox values

Answer 2

You can simply set the anchor's href to your PHP page, but as with a standard form submission that would either navigate away from the current page or cause the current page to reload (depending on what your PHP returned).
So probably you want to make an Ajax request. Unlike standard form submission, Ajax doesn't cause the current page to reload, it returns the response back to your JS code.
Assuming you can add an id to your li or anchor element (e.g., id="deleteLink"), or otherwise identify it, you can bind a click handler that does the Ajax:
$("#deleteLink").click(function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
$.ajax({
url: "yourPHPpageHere.php",
data: { paramName1 : paramValue, paramName2 : paramValue2 },
dataType : "json" // or "html", "xml", or "text", whatever your PHP returns
}).done(function( response ) {
// optionally do something with response.
});
});
Any data you need to pass to the delete PHP (presumably some kind of record id at minimum) can be set in the data parameter of the $.ajax() call.
For more detail about the $.ajax() method see the jQuery doco.