AJAX contact form in CodeIgniter

Question

Few questions:

I'm using CI and JQuery AJAX.

In my code below, I assemble dataString, which by default, is appended to the URL as a query string.

I've changed the AJAX "type" to POST, so my question is - how do I access dataString in my CI app?

It would seem I still have to use

$name=$this->input->post('name')

Which to me, makes setting dataString redundant?

--

I've tried searching but can't really find anything concrete.

Would it be possible to still make use of CIs validation library and AJAX?

if($this->form_validation->run() == FALSE)
{
    // what can i return so that my CI app shows errors?
}

Normally you would reload the contact form or redirect the user. In an ideal world I would like the error messages to be shown to the user.

Jquery:

    $(document).ready(function($){
        $("#submit_btn").click(function(){
            var name = $("input#name").val();
            var company = $("input#company").val();
            var email = $("input#email").val();
            var phone = $("input#phone").val();
            var message = $("textarea#message").val();
            var dataString = 'name=' +  name + '&message=' + message + '&return_email=' + email + '&return_phone=' +
            phone + '&company=' + company;
            var response = $.ajax({
                type: "POST",
                url: "newsite/contact_ajax/",
                data: dataString
            }).responseText;

            //$('#contact').hide();
            //$('#contact').html('<h5>Form submitted!  Thank you!</h5><h4>We will be in touch with you soon.</h4>');
            //$('#contact').fadeIn('slow');
            return false;
        });  
    });

hope i've been clear enough - if anyone has a decent example of a CI contact form that would be great. there's mixed stuff on the internet but nothing that hits all the boxes.

thanks

Answer 1

As I wrote in the comments, you don't need to set a dataString since jQuery can do it for you:

$(document).ready(function($){
    $("#submit_btn").click(function(){
        var response = $.ajax({
            type: "POST",
            url: "newsite/contact_ajax/",
            data: $(your_form_id).serialize()
        }).responseText;

        //$('#contact').hide();
        //$('#contact').html('<h5>Form submitted!  Thank you!</h5><h4>We will be in touch with you soon.</h4>');
        //$('#contact').fadeIn('slow');
        return false;
    });  
});

Answer 2

If you use the jQuery $.post() function, you can explicitly name the post variables, then access them in your controller the way you suggested in your question.

 $.post("<?php echo site_url("newsite/contact_ajax/";?>",
        {my_name:name,my_company:company,my_email:email,my_phone:phone,my_message:message},
        function(){
              //callback function
         },    
         html
      );

In Your controller:

$this->input->post('my_name');
$this->input->post('my_company');
//etc