PHP Example – AJAX Poll

PHP Example – AJAX Poll
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AJAX Poll
The following example will demonstrate a poll where the result is shown without reloading.

Do you like PHP and AJAX so far?
Yes:  
No: 
Example Explained – The HTML Page
When a user chooses an option above, a function called “getVote()” is executed. The function is triggered by the “onclick” event:




function getVote(int) {
  if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
    // code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
    xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
  } else {  // code for IE6, IE5
    xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject(“Microsoft.XMLHTTP”);
  }
  xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function() {
    if (this.readyState==4 && this.status==200) {
      document.getElementById(“poll”).innerHTML=this.responseText;
     }
  }
  xmlhttp.open(“GET”,”poll_vote.php?vote=”+int,true);
  xmlhttp.send();
}

The getVote() function does the following:

Create an XMLHttpRequest object
Create the function to be executed when the server response is ready
Send the request off to a file on the server
Notice that a parameter (vote) is added to the URL (with the value of the yes or no option)
The PHP File
The page on the server called by the JavaScript above is a PHP file called “poll_vote.php”:

<?php
$vote = $_REQUEST[‘vote’];

//get content of textfile
$filename = “poll_result.txt”;
$content = file($filename);

//put content in array
$array = explode(“||”, $content[0]);
$yes = $array[0];
$no = $array[1];

if ($vote == 0) {
  $yes = $yes + 1;
}
if ($vote == 1) {
  $no = $no + 1;
}

//insert votes to txt file
$insertvote = $yes.”||”.$no;
$fp = fopen($filename,”w”);
fputs($fp,$insertvote);
fclose($fp);
?>

Result:

The value is sent from the JavaScript, and the following happens:

Get the content of the “poll_result.txt” file
Put the content of the file in variables and add one to the selected variable
Write the result to the “poll_result.txt” file
Output a graphical representation of the poll result
The Text File
The text file (poll_result.txt) is where we store the data from the poll.

It is stored like this:

0||0
The first number represents the “Yes” votes, the second number represents the “No” votes.

Note: Remember to allow your web server to edit the text file. Do NOT give everyone access, just the web server (PHP).


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