传递href onclick变量以在PHP中运行

I am trying to pass variables stored in href links to a function. Im able to define the variables from the query results. My problem is passing it to the function once the hyperlink is clicked. This is my code:

<?php
    foreach($pdo->query('SELECT * FROM sk_courses ORDER BY courseID') as $row)
    {
      echo "<a href='#' onclick='hrefClick(".$row['courseID'].");'/>".$row['courseID']."</a><br>";
    } 
?>

This is the function:

<script> 
function hrefClick($course){
      $newCourse=$course;
}
</script>

I was able to find a way to get it done? It seems pretty straightforward. This is what I came up with.

<?php
    foreach($pdo->query('SELECT * FROM sk_courses ORDER BY courseID') as $row){
      echo  "<form name='course".$row['courseID']."' action='index.php' method='GET'/>";
      echo "<a href='javascript: document.course".$row['courseID'].".submit();'/>".$row['courseID']."</a>";
      echo "<input type='hidden' name='courseID' value='".$row['courseID']."'/><br>";
      echo "</form>";
    } 
  ?>

PHP Code :

<?php
    foreach($pdo->query('SELECT * FROM sk_courses ORDER BY courseID') as $row)
    {
      echo "<a href='#' onclick='hrefClick(".$row['courseID'].");'/>".$row['courseID']."</a><br>";
    } 
?>

Function should be as:

<script> 
function hrefClick(course){
      // You can't define php variables in java script as $course etc.
      var newCourse=course;
      alert(newCourse);
}
</script>

We will be using two file here. From file1.php onclicking the link we will send the data via Ajax to file2.php. It is a Jquery based solution.

//file1.php
<?php
foreach($pdo->query('SELECT * FROM sk_courses ORDER BY courseID') as $row){
    echo '<a href="javascript:void()" data-href="'.$row['courseID'].'"/>'.$row['courseID'].'</a><br>';
}
?>
<script>
    $('a').click(function(){
        var hrefData = $(this).attr('data-href');
        if (typeof hrefData !== typeof undefined && hrefData !== false) {
            alert(hrefData);
            //or You can post the data
            $.post( "file2.php", { courseid:hrefData} );
        }
    });
</script>

You can retrieve the result on file2.php

//file2.php
<?php
if(isset($_POST['courseid'])){
    $newCourse = $_POST['courseid'];
}
?>