title: Making a jQuery AJAX request from Laravel View
body: <p>I'll try to simplify the question a little more.  In index.blade.php I have this AJAX call that gets routed to my controller.  I added a "name" to the select element so that the form serialization is easier, and I've omitted the form.  It POSTS with parameters:</p>
  
  <pre><code>command
  _token
  value1
  value2
  
  $( "#apiselection" ).submit(function( event ) {
  alert( "Handler for .submit() called." );
  event.preventDefault();
  var formParams = $("#apiselection").serialize();
  var data = formParams;
      $.post("dicomgrid", data, function(result){
          alert(result);
          $("#APIresults").html(result);
      });
  });
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In routes.php I have this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Route::post('dicomgrid', 'DicomGridController@apiCall');
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which is handled by the Contoller, which is now this.  I had to add use Illuminate\Http\Request to make it work.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?php
  namespace App\Http\Controllers;
  use Illuminate\Http\Request;
  
  class DicomGridController extends AppBaseController
  {
  
      /**
       * Display a listing of the resource.
       *
       * @return Response
       */
      public  function apiCall(Request $request) {
          if ($request-&gt;input('command') == "Login") {
              return "test2";
          }
          else {
              return "test";
          }
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>That part works.</p>
  
  <p>However, what I then want to do is essentially make an AJAX call (not sure you can do that within a Controller class using jQuery or some other method, so that what I return to the original call is what I get back through that second request.  There must be a better way to do that, but I do like the idea of having a controller to service all of the requests for that particular application.  I am really just getting started with this, so it is mostly a learning exercise.</p>
  
  <p>To elaborate, the PHP page that has some of my functions is like this, cut down version:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?php
  $option = $_POST["APICall"];
  ini_set('display_errors', 1);
  ini_set('display_startup_errors', 1);
  error_reporting(E_ALL);
  $curl = curl_init();
  curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, TRUE);
  curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
  $APIBase = 'xxx';
  $userName = "xxx";
  $passWord = "xxx";
  $sid =null;
  $studyUUID;
  
  function CallAPI($method, $API_command, $data = false)
  {
     global $curl;  // curl object
     global $APIBase;  //  base url for API calls
     global $sid;  // session id, null initially, but after login it is set for the session, 
      switch ($method)
      {
          case "POST":
              curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
  
              if ($data)
                  curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
              break;
          case "PUT":
              curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_PUT, 1);
              break;
          default:
              if ($data)
                  $url = sprintf("%s?%s", $url, http_build_query($data));
      }
  
      curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $APIBase . $API_command );
      curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
  
      if ($sid == null)  {
          curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH, CURLAUTH_BASIC);
          curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "login:password");
      }
  
      $result = curl_exec($curl);
      return $result;
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>There are other functions on that same page that depend on the initialized variable and $curl in particular.  Bottom line though is that I retrieve some results, either in JSON format or some other text (like formatted Array print_f), mostly for development and testing.  That is why I want a controller to handle that feature set.</p>
  
  <p>So I guess my question is how do I call my functions on that page within the Controller and return the results back to my original AJAX call.</p>
  
  <p>It that a stupid question or method ?</p>
  
  <p>Maybe this is what I need ?</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1725165/calling-a-function-within-a-class-method">Calling a function within a Class method?</a></p>