Apologies in advance for asking a question that may have been answered elsewhere, but I've been struggling for hours to transfer the information into my own program. Despite my attempts, I always encounter the same obstacles. So, I decided it would be best to ask my own question.
The Task
I am currently working on a booking form where parents can sign their children out of school if they are absent. The goal is to streamline the process and reduce the burden on year group assistants who constantly handle phone calls about absences. By automating this task, they can focus on other important aspects of their role such as student relations.
To achieve this, I created an HTML form:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/9OD7R.png
Once the form is filled out and submitted, an object is generated:
class Teacher
{
constructor(TeacherObject)
{
this.Tutor = TeacherObject.Tutor;
this.YearGroup = TeacherObject.YearGroup;
this.FullName = TeacherObject.FullName;
this.ID = TeacherObject.ID;
}
}
class Student
{
constructor(Teacher, StudentName)
{
this.StudentForm = Teacher;
this.StudentName = StudentName;
}
}
class Request
{
constructor(Student, Dates)
{
this.AbsentStudent = Student;
this.AbsenceDates = Dates;
}
}
A 'Request' object containing all necessary details is then supposed to be sent to MySQL to be saved in a database.
The Issue
As far as I know, PHP executes server-side and precedes any Javascript/jQuery/HTML code. If the code responsible for adding data to the database is written in PHP, wouldn't it run before the code creating the object for the database? Using include() or require_once() results in the PHP file running entirely before receiving any data input, which usually comes at the end of the program.
I came across AJAX, which seems like it can somehow delay the execution of the PHP code. Could someone explain how I could utilize AJAX if that's what I'm missing?
I have set up a function in the PHP file:
function addData($requestDataInJSONFormat)
{
echo "Just testing....";
}
But if everything runs before the page finishes loading, how do I ensure that I can wait until I have the final student object to pass to the PHP function and add it to the database? This concept has left me perplexed!
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated, Jake