Building a PHP MySQL CRUD script with jQuery AJAX

Okay, friend – you want to create a web app that can add, read, update, and delete data in a database. And you want it to be fast and smooth without full page reloads. We can totally do this.

It may sound complicated – but it’s not too bad if we break it down into simple steps. I’m excited to walk through it with you!

Before starting here is our previous article:

How to Write a PHP script to parse an XML file [Easy Steps]

Contents hide

First, the Database

Writing the PHP CRUD Scripts

Making it Dynamic with jQuery AJAX

Bringing it All Together

PHP MySQL CRUD script with jQuery AJAX Examples

FAQs

First, the Database

Every good web app needs a place to store data permanently. For this, we’ll use MySQL. It’s free, popular, and works great with PHP.

Setting up MySQL is pretty straightforward:

First, install MySQL on your computer. Click “next” through all the screens.
Open the MySQL command line and make a new database. Let’s call it my_app_db.
Create a separate user account so the app can access the database. Name it something like app_user with a password.
Give that user account permission to use the database. Now it can add, read, update, and delete data.

This user account will allow our PHP code to work with the database. The hard database setup is done – nice work!

Writing the PHP CRUD Scripts

CRUD stands for create, read, update, delete – the four basic functions we want our app to have.

Our PHP code will handle all of these by interacting with the database.

Let’s start with “create.” We need a PHP page that can take data from a form and add it as a new row in the database.

Here’s what it needs to do:

Connect to the database using the app_user account we created.
Check that the form data is valid and secure.
Build a proper SQL INSERT statement with the data.
Run the query to insert the row.
Return a response to the app.

The “read” script will be similar – it will query for rows in a table and return them. We’ll also have PHP pages for updating and deleting data.

**PHP MySQL CRUD script with jQuery AJAX**

Making it Dynamic with jQuery AJAX

For the front-end, we’ll use jQuery. This JavaScript library makes things like HTML manipulation and AJAX calls way easier.

When a user submits a form, we can use AJAX to send the data to our PHP script without reloading the whole page.

Here’s how:

Use jQuery to detect when a form is submitted.
Call $.post() to send the data to the PHP script asynchronously.
When it finishes, update the page dynamically with the response.

This makes the app feel smooth and responsive. jQuery helps avoid messy frontend code.

Bringing it All Together

Now we have:

A MySQL database to store and manage data.
PHP scripts to create, read, update, and delete that data.
jQuery AJAX on the frontend for fast interactivity.

Combining these technologies gives us a full-stack web app, with a solid foundation.

We can build on this with features like:

Showing data in a table that updates dynamically
Search filters to find records
Pagination for browsing through results
User accounts and login

The basics are done – now the fun coding can begin! Let me know if any part is still confusing – I’m happy to explain more. We’ve got this!

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PHP MySQL CRUD script with jQuery AJAX Examples

Here are two examples I could provide for the article on building a PHP MySQL CRUD app with jQuery AJAX:

Example 1 – Sample create script code

I could show an example PHP script for handling the “create” operation, inserting a new record into the database.

php

// Connect to the database 
$db = new mysqli('localhost', 'app_user', 'password', 'my_app_db');

// Validate and sanitize post data
$name = sanitize_input($_POST['name']);
$email = sanitize_email($_POST['email']);

// Insert query 
$query = "INSERT INTO users (name, email)
          VALUES ('$name', '$email')";

// Execute query and check for errors
if ($db->query($query)) {
  echo "User created successfully";
} else {
  echo "Error creating user: " . $db->error;
}

This shows how PHP can take form data, validate it, build a query, and insert it into the MySQL database.

Example 2 – Sample jQuery AJAX call

I could also include a code snippet for the jQuery AJAX call from the frontend to demonstrate that part:

// Handle form submit event  
$('form').submit(function(e) {

  // Prevent normal submit
  e.preventDefault();
  
  // Serialize form data
  var formData = $(this).serialize();

  // AJAX call
  $.post('create-user.php', formData, function(response) {
    
    // Update DOM on success
    $('#message').html(response);

  });

});

This shows how jQuery can be used to handle form submission, serialize data, post it via AJAX, and then handle the response to update the page.

And that’s a wrap, amigos! We started with nothing but big dreams, and now we’ve built a fully functional CRUD web app using PHP, MySQL, and jQuery/AJAX. Give yourselves a hand!

Together we:

Set up a database with MySQL to store our data
Wrote PHP scripts to handle all database operations
Used jQuery to make the front-end slick and dynamic
Added AJAX to avoid constant page reloads
Put it all together into one smooth web app!

Of course, there’s plenty more we could do – user logins, profiles, security, cute cat pics – the sky’s the limit. But you’ve got the core skills now to start building data-driven apps.

Way to go, gang. You’ve unlocked the power of PHP, MySQL, jQuery, and AJAX. Now go out there and create something awesome! Proud of you.

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FAQs

Here are some common faqs that come in the mind of a person:

Yo, do I really need jQuery? Can’t I just use plain ol’ JavaScript?

Totally, you can use vanilla JS if you want. But jQuery makes stuff like DOM manipulation and AJAX way simpler. It’s like a toolkit of helper methods! No need to reinvent the wheel.

Ugh, why MySQL? What about Mongo or Postgres?

MySQL is just our relational DB of choice here. You do you! The concepts are similar with other databases. MySQL plays nice with PHP. But MongoDB, Postgres, etc all get the job done too.

Dude, is AJAX even still a thing?

Ha, good question! AJAX has been around a while but it’s still super relevant. It lets us asynchronously send and retrieve data without full page reloads. Keeps things fast and dynamic! No need to reinvent the wheel.

Help, my app broke! What do I do?

Breathe, friend. First, check your console for errors. Try debugging line-by-line. Comment stuff out. Break the problem down into smaller pieces. And feel free to hit me up, happy to help troubleshoot! We got this.

I built it – now how do I launch it?

Woohoo, you built a thing! To launch, you’ll need server space – shared hosting and cloud services like AWS are good options. Configure the server for PHP/MySQL. Import your DB. Upload files via FTP. Bask in your creation!