14

I have an object that looks like this

var obj = { p1 : true, p2 : true, p3 : false }

I am looking to try and pass this object as part of a post request.

however on the other end (in php) all I get is

[object Object]

How can I send an object via post?

basically what I am trying to do is

I have an input that is hidden and is created like so

<input id="obj" type="hidden" name="obj[]">

which is part of a hidden form.

when a button is pressed I have

$(#obj).val(obj);
$('form').submit();

Please no suggestions to use ajax as I must do it this way as it is to download a dynamically created file.

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2 Answers 2

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28

You need to serialize/convert the object to a string before submitting it. You can use jQuery.param() for this.

$('#obj').val(jQuery.param(obj));
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2 Comments

A+ first one to read the whole question, and your answer works perfect too :) Will accept asap
even works recursively {a: {b: 'c', d: {e: 'f', g: 'h'}, i: 'j'} => a[b]=c&a[d][e]=f&a[d][g]=h&i=j
14

You might consider using JSON notation to send the object to the server. If you include a JSON parser/renderer in your page, (it's built in on all modern browsers now, and also IE8 in standards mode) you can convert the object into a string preserving its full object graph. Most server-side languages now have JSON parsing available for them (in PHP it's json_decode, for instance). You can put that string in your hidden form field before sending the form.

That would look like this:

$('#obj').val(JSON.stringify(obj));
$('form').submit();

...and your server-side would see a string in the form

{ "p1" : true, "p2" : true, "p3" : false }
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8 Comments

Please read the whole question. The form is needed as it is downloading a dynamically generated file, You cannot cause a file download from ajax data. I cannot store the file that is created anywhere either so, generating the file via the ajax call and returning a url will not work either.
@Hailwood: Can't believe I missed that. Fixed.
@T.J. Cheers, Your new answer will work. However i am using @Matt's answer :) (ps, you get an upvote from me)
@Hailwood: Glad Matt's solution will work for you, it's all about having options. :-)
Exactly, Actually I do prefer this option, but I am including jquery already, unless it has a built in JSON parser I dont really want to include another library. Most browsers now have a JSON parser already, but... IE6...
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