title: How to retrieve HTML and variables with jQuery/Ajax and PHP
body: <p>I have an HTML form which uses selections from a drop-down list to populate a mySQL table, but with jQuery / AJAX calling an external php file to update the display of entered lines below the original form.</p>
  
  <p>The purpose of the form is an order entry system, and as such works: select an item, see it added to the list.  The problem that I have is that as well as having the entered items displayed, I want to show the total order value updating.  I thought that I would be able to use a PHP session variable, but that doesn't seem to work unless the original page is refreshed.</p>
  
  <p>Therefore, my question is: is there a way to get session variables (or any other sort of variable) back from my external php file as well as the HTML that I am appending to the displayed page?</p>
  
  <p>If it helps this is the code that I'm using to call the external php when adding a new row:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$.ajax({
  type: "POST",
  url: "ajaxInsertOrderLine.php",
  data: dataString,
  cache: false,
  success: function(html){
      $("#orderItems").append(html);
      document.getElementById('inputStockNo').value='';
      document.getElementById('qty').value='';
      document.getElementById('totalAmount').value="&lt;?php echo $_SESSION["totalValue"]; ?&gt;";
  }});
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>where "ajaxInsertOrderLine.php" is the external file, 'inputStockNo' and 'qty' are two form variables being sent to the script and zeroed after a successful insertion. </p>