PHP - Zend3，Jquery，Ajax（帖子）

I have built a website using php and the zend framework. In one of the pages I have a zend form and a table. The user can fill in the form, click the search button(page refresh occurs) and then get the corresponding results in the table.

What I am trying to do is to implement the same functionality using Ajax so the page won't have to refresh or ask for re-submission when reloaded.

From my controller I pass the data I want to display to view.phtml. When the page first opens all the data from database gets displayed in the table. Somehow after the user clicks search :

• the ajax post data should be retrieved in the controller
• compared to the rest of the data to see if there are any matches

• return the data matched

  public function searchAction(): ViewModel
  {
      $persons = $this->personsService->getAllPersons();
      $form = $this->personsForm;
  
  if ($this->getRequest()->isPost()) {
      $formData = $this->params()->fromPost();
      $form->setData($formData);
  
      if ($form->isValid()) {
          $validFilteredData = $form->getData();
          $persons = $this->personsService->getPersonsAfterSearch($validFilteredData);
      }
  }
  
  return new ViewModel([
      'persons' => $persons,
      'form' => $form,
  ]);
  }
  

I would like any suggestions on how to implement ajax since I am a beginner in web development and I don't experience working with ajax.

Thanks in advance.

Before you do this:

return new ViewModel([
    'persons' => $persons,
    'form' => $form,
]);

Add this:

if ($this->getRequest()->isXmlHttpRequest()) {
    return new \Zend\View\Model\JsonModel(
        [
            'persons' => $persons,
            'form'    => $form,
        ]
    );
}

Note: you've tagged "zend-framework" but mentioned "zend3". Above solution works for ZF2 and ZF3, don't know about ZF1.

Update due to comments:

Full function would be:

public function searchAction() : ViewModel
{
    $persons = $this->personsService->getAllPersons();
    $form = $this->personsForm;

    if ($this->getRequest()->isPost()) {
        $formData = $this->params()->fromPost();
        $form->setData($formData);

        if ($form->isValid()) {
            $validFilteredData = $form->getData();
            $persons = $this->personsService->getPersonsAfterSearch($validFilteredData);
        }
    }

    $data = [
        'persons' => $persons,
        'form'    => $form,
    ];

    // AJAX response
    if ($this->getRequest()->isXmlHttpRequest()) {
        return new \Zend\View\Model\JsonModel($data);
    }

    return $data; // No need to return "new ViewModel", handled via ZF magic
}