Stuck with Codeigniter and jQuery.ajax - php

Question

So... thanks to one of stackoverflow users I tried to implement this fancy feature into my existing Codeigniter application...
In my View I have this:
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function() {
$(".submit_op").click(function() {
var dataString = $("#op_form").serialize();
var url = "<?php echo site_url('submit/insert_data'); ?>";
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: url+"/"+dataString,
data: dataString,
cache: false,
success: function(html){
//$("div#op").prepend(html); //PROBLEM HERE???
$("div#op").prepend("<div>TEST</div>");
$("div#op div:first").fadeIn("slow");
//$("#debug").append("<font color=green><b>OK!</b></font> : " + dataString + "<br/>");
},
error: function(html){
//$("#debug").append("<font color=red><b>ER!</b></font> : " + dataString + "<br/>");
}
});
return false;
});
});
</script>
<div id="debug"></div>
<?php
//here goes some data from db... newly added div should go in top of other divs
foreach ($some_data_sent_from_controller as $var) {
echo "<div id=\"op\">";
echo "<table width=\"100%\" border=\"0\">";
//showing data
echo "</table>";
echo "</div>";
}
echo "<form action=\"#\" id=\"op_form\">";
//some clickable stuff...
echo br().form_submit('submit', 'OK', 'class="submit_op"');
echo "</form>";
In my Controller I have a function which handles data sent from View:
function insert_data($input) {
$this->load->model('blah_model');
//processing serialized data and sending it to corresponding tables via Model
$this->blah_model->add_to_table($some_data);
$this->blah_model->add_to_another_table($some_other_data);
}
And the Model is not a biggy :)
function add_to_table($data){
//processing data...
$insert = $this->db->insert('my_table', array('array_which_contains_actual_data'));
if ($insert == TRUE) {
return TRUE;
} else {
return FALSE;
}
}
//etc.
As far as I can tell, my problem is not in my M-V-C pattern, since every time I submit a form the data is correctly inserted in all possible tables in my relational db... But the newly added row just won't show up unless I refresh a page.
I think that I'm doing something wrong inside of my jQuery.ajax lines... If I run my script with this line $("div#op").prepend("<div>TEST</div>"); and when I submit a form, I get desired result - text TEST shows up on top of my page every time I submit... But if I change that line to $("div#op").prepend(html); nothing show up until refreshing...
What am I doing wrong here??
Thanks a lot for any help!

Answer 1

wow, this was probably pretty lame from me... But in the end I figured out that I have to echo out my result in controller, not return it... So when I change the function in my controller into
function insert_data($input) {
$str = "<div>KILLROY WAS HERE!</div>";
echo $str; // <----- !!!!!!
}
I can see a message on my page...
Now to other things... Thanks for self-brainstorming :)