Problems passing jQuery $.post a variable as a parameter

Question

I am trying to send a name:value pair to a php script using the $.post object in jQuery where both name and value are variables. I have sent the variables to the console in FF, so I know they are being set correctly, but when I view the headers being sent, only the value variable is being evaluated correctly, the name is being sent as a literal string of the variable name. Here is the function in its entirely:

$(document).ready(function() {
  $('#formS form fieldset > input').blur(function() {
    if($(this).val()=='' && $(this).prev().is('img')) {
     $(this).prev().remove();
     return;
    }

    if((($(this).is('#formS form fieldset > input[id*=mail]')) ||
    ($(this).is('#formS form fieldset > input[id*=sername]'))) &&
    ($(this).val()!="")) {
      var email_field = $(this);
      if(!$(this).prev().is('img')){
      $('<img src="" alt="" style="width: 16px; height: 16px;" />').insertBefore(this);
      }
      var type = ($(this).is('input[id*=sername]'))?'username':'email';
      var value = $(this).val();
      $.post('checkemail.php5', {type:value}, function(data) {
                if(data == "free") {
         email_field.prev().attr('src','/images/greentick.png').attr('alt','available');
        } else if(data == "taken") {
         email_field.prev().attr('src','/images/redcross.png').attr('alt','taken');
        } else {
          console.log('hmmm'+data);
        }
        });
        }
        });
});

So, the headers being sent are the literal string type, and whatever value evaluates to. Anybody have any ideas why?

Answer 1

Because the syntax {} takes a set of name:value where the names become the property on the object. This is a literal and cannot be a variable, as you see. Use this:

var params = {};
params[type] = value;

and pass params instead of {type:value}

Answer 2

I'm not sure of what your problem is, it's not so clear to me. I don't much knowledge in php also but you might want to try it like this:

var type = ($(this).is('input[id*=sername]'))?'username':'email'; var value = $(this).val(); var data= type+"="+value;

$.post('checkemail.php5', data, function(data) {.......

Very best,

Answer 3

exactly what I was looking for Dark Falcon, thanks!

was difficult to find this solution, BTW. I assume most people are just serializing the form data and sending that as the post param, but in some cases it's nice to use variable-name => variable-value pairing, which was driving me nuts as nothing I tried when using name as a variable was working