Not recieving values sent via AJAX POST to PHP

Question

I'm trying I'm trying to send a specific section of my URL string, to my php file, to then populate my page accordingly. Everything is working fine, except for the AJAX POST method. I've tried doing var_dump of the POST variable in my PHP, and my array is empty (so I know nothing is getting through).

The success DOES return as being passed, so I don't know where the data is going. I'm testing locally on XAMPP, and I've combed through SoF and no luck on any of the fixes. My code is below.

Screen shot of page:

jQuery AJAX Request:

$(document).ready(function() {
    str = window.location.href;
    pos = str.search("pages/"); //42
    send = str.slice(42, -5);
    console.log(send);
    console.log(pos);
    $.ajax({
        type: "POST",
        url: "retrieve.php",
        data: {
            tom: send
        },
        success: function() {
            $.get("retrieve.php", function(data, status) {
                    $("#main").html(data);
                }) //ends GET function   
        },
        error: function() {
            console.log(arguments)
        }
    }); //ends POST request               
}); //ends DOC-READY function

PHP:

echo "<i>hello</i>";
echo var_dump($_POST);
$url = $_POST['tom'];
json_decode($url);
echo $url;

Answer 1

Try the below,

Also you don't need to json_decode unless you send a json request,And please make sure all the post values are passing.

Ajax:

$(document).ready(function() {
    var str = window.location.href;
    var pos = str.search("pages/"); //42
    var send = str.slice(42, -5);
    console.log(send);
    console.log(pos);
    $.ajax({
        type: "POST",
        url: "retrieve.php",
        data: {
            'tom': send//make sure this is not empty
        },
        success: function(data) {
            console.log(data);
        },
        error: function(arguments) {
            console.log(arguments)
        }
    }); //ends POST request               
}); //ends DOC-READY function

PHP:

if($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST'){
    //echo "<i>hello</i>";
    //echo var_dump($_POST);
    $url = $_POST['tom'];
    json_encode($url);
    echo $url;
}