Delete file using a link

Question

i want to have function like delete file from database by using link instead of button. how can i do that? do i need to use href/unlink or what? Can i do like popup confirma

Answer 1

The elegant way of doing this would be to use both PHP and JavaScript. PHP is a server-side language, and should probably be removed as much as possible from the client side stuff. One great way to do it would be to essentially create yourself an API.

The API would be a PHP script that deletes a row. It takes a variable in via GET and returns a boolean that says "yes we deleted the row" or "something went wrong." I like to use JSON, which in JavaScript is easier to work with than XML, and jQuery's getJSON function, a package that makes it really easy to get going.

In the .php file (we call it api.php later), if your results are successful return out success boolean. We use PHP's json_encode on an array, and echo out the result:

$variable = someFunctonToSanitize($_REQUEST['idToDelete']);
$query_to_run = "delete query using $variable";
$result = mysql_query($query_to_run);
// set headers
header('Content-type: text/json');
header('Content-type: application/json');
// if the query was successful, echo true
if($result) {
   echo json_encode(array("success"=>"true"));
} else { // else echo false
   echo json_encode(array("success"=>"false"));
}

In your JavaScript, here using jQuery (this is discouraged, see comments below):

$('#deleteLink').click(function(event) {
   // prevent link from actually going anywhere
   event.preventDefault();
   // Fire off API request
   $.getJSON("api.php?idToDelete=whatever", function(data){
     if(data.success) {
     alert("Item was deleted.");
     } else {
        alert("There was an error");
     }
   });
 });

With a .post() request, per @Col. Shrapnel and @josh3736's comments (note: also changed $_GET to $_REQUEST to work with both):

$.post("api.php", { "idToDelete": "whatever" },
   function(data){
         if(data.success) {
            alert("Item was deleted.");
         } else {
            alert("There was an error");
         }
   }, "json");

In your HTML:

Delete!