Access a JavaScript variable from PHP

Question

I need to access a JavaScript variable with PHP. Here's a stripped-down version of the code I'm currently trying, which isn't working:

<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
    var test = "tester";
</script>

<?php
    echo $_GET['test'];
?>

I'm a completely new to both JavaScript and PHP, so I would really appreciate any advice.

UPDATE: OK, I guess I simplified that too much. What I'm trying to do is create a form that will update a Twitter status when submitted. I've got the form working OK, but I want to also add geolocation data. Since I'm using Javascript (specifically, the Google Geolocation API) to get the location, how do I access that information with PHP when I'm submitting the form?

Answer 1

As JavaScript is a client-side language and PHP is a server-side language you would need to physically push the variable to the PHP script, by either including the variable on the page load of the PHP script (script.php?var=test), which really has nothing to do with JavaScript, or by passing the variable to the PHP via an AJAX/AHAH call each time the variable is changed.

If you did want to go down the second path, you'd be looking at XMLHttpRequest, or my preference, jQuerys Ajax calls: http://docs.jquery.com/Ajax

Answer 2

If showing data to the user, do a redirect:

<script language="JavaScript">
    var tester = "foobar";
    document.location="http://www.host.org/myphp.php?test=" + tester;
</script>

or an iframe:

<script language="JavaScript">
    var tester = "foobar";
    document.write("<iframe src=\"http://www.host.org/myphp.php?test=" + tester + "\"></iframe>");
</script>

If you don't need user output, create an iframe with width=0 and height=0.