How you can make an ajax call in wordpress admin area ?

#wordpress #ajax #javascript #admin

Wordpress made it so easy to use ajax in admin and front-end areas since the ajax is built into WordPress core.

Let's see the short example of this:

Without separate javascript file
With separate javascript file

You can create a file in your plugin OR you can use your theme's functions.php file for this.

1. Without separate javascript file

There is an action hook called admin_footer, using that we can embed the javascript code into the admin footer area.

create an ajax request from javascript and pass action variable as data.
Wordpress uses wp_ajax_ action hook to detect all ajax requests coming from admin or front-end area. You need to specify this as prefix with your action name like this wp_ajax_your_action_name. See the below example for this.

ajaxurl javascript global variable is defined for the admin area which gets the admin-ajax.php url.


<?php
add_action( 'admin_footer', 'ajax_without_file' );
function ajax_without_file() { ?>
    <script type="text/javascript" >
    jQuery(document).ready(function($) {
        var dataVariable = {
            'action': 'my_action_without_file', // your action name
            'variable_name': "Some value" // some additional data to send
        };

        jQuery.ajax({
            url: ajaxurl, // this will point to admin-ajax.php
            type: 'POST',
            data: dataVariable, 
            success: function (response) {
                console.log(response);
            }
        });
    });
    </script> 
    <?php
}


add_action("wp_ajax_my_action_without_file" , "my_action_without_file");
function my_action_without_file(){
    echo json_encode($_POST);
    wp_die();
}
?>

2. With separate javascript file

Create a sample-scripts.js file and include this code

jQuery(function ($) {

    var testingObj = {
        init: function () {
            testingObj.callAjaxMethod();
        },
        callAjaxMethod:function(){
            var data = {
                'action': 'my_action_with_file',  // your action name
                'name': "Shweta"
            };

            $.ajax({
                url: ajaxurl,
                type: 'POST',
                data: data,
                success: function (response) {
                    console.log(response);
                }
            });
        }
    }
    testingObj.init();
});

Create a php file and use admin_enqueue_scripts action hook to include js file in admin footer.

<?php
add_action( 'admin_enqueue_scripts', 'enqueue_my_script' );
function enqueue_my_script() {
    wp_enqueue_script( 'my-script', plugin_dir_url(__FILE__).'sample-scripts.js', array('jquery'), null, true );
}

add_action("wp_ajax_my_action_with_file", "my_action_with_file");
function my_action_with_file(){
    echo json_encode($_POST);
    wp_die();
}
?>