How can I create a Perl array from a JavaScript array that is passed via AJAX?
Perl Access:
@searchType = $cgi->param('searchType');
print @searchType[0];
Output:
employee,admin,users,accounts
It seems that the Perl array sets the first value (@searchType[0]) as a string of all the passed JavaScript array objects.
It is an old question, so I am not sure whether that is still interesting for you but maybe someone else is interested in this question, too.
As already suggested in the comments above, one way to pass a javascript array to Perl via ajax is to convert this array first to an JSON object - using "JSON.stringify(jsArray);" - which is then decoded in the Perl script. I added a very simple example below where the first item of your array is returned through an alert.
index.html:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Testing ajax</title>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function() {
$("#test").click(function(){
var jsArray = ["employee", "admin", "users", "accounts"];
var jsArrayJson = JSON.stringify(jsArray);
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: '/cgi-bin/ajax/stackCGI/processJsArray.pl', //change the path
data: { 'searchType': jsArrayJson},
success: function(res) {alert(res);},
error: function() {alert("did not work");}
});
})
})
</script>
</head>
<body>
<button id="test" >Push</button>
</body>
</html>
processJsArray.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use CGI;
use JSON;
my $q = CGI->new;
my @myJsArray = @{decode_json($q->param('searchType'))}; #read the json object in as an array
print $q->header('text/plain;charset=UTF-8');
print "first item:"."\n";
print $myJsArray[0]."\n";
application/x-www-form-urlencoded. That's unnecessarily complex. Pick one or the other. I'd go with form data as its easier to build progressively.
You need to express it in the form of key=value&key=other-value.
var searchType = ["employee", "admin", "users", "accounts"];
var keyName = "searchType";
for (var i = 0; i < searchType.length; i++) {
searchType[i] = encodeURIComponent(keyName) + "=" + encodeURIComponent(searchType[i]);
}
var queryString = searchType.join("&");
Then you use the queryString as part of your URL or post data as normal.
application/x-www-form-urlencoded (because it will work with my @searchType = $cgi->param('searchType')). I would have gone with JSON (because it'll cause fewer headaches in the long run). But the point it that something needs to be used.application/x-www-form-urlencoded data, since it can be generated with a form so you can reduce the dependancy on JavaScript. It will also be parsed automatically by every server side form library, so you don't need to write an extra JSON decoding step.