Getting radio button value and sending through ajax to php

Question

I have a poll on my website which displays radio buttons next to each answer. When the user selects an option and submits, im running a a php script via ajax to insert the v

Answer 1

var option = $('input[type="radio"]:checked').val();

$.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: "ajax_submit_vote.php",
    data: { poll_option : option }
});

In the PHP you are reading $_POST['poll_option'] therefore you must use poll_option as the key in your data object. Also, the value is stored in option not $optionID as you were trying to use.

The $ is a valid character in variable names in Javascript, it doesn't do anything special itself but some coders prefix anything that is a jQuery object with $ so they can glance through code and easily see what variables already have the jQuery wrapper.

For example:

var $option = $('input[type="radio"]:checked'); // $option is the jQuery wrapped HTML element
var myValue = $option.val(); // we know $option already has the jQuery wrapper so no need to use the $(..) syntax.