I have a situation where I need to increase the number of time article has been read. Once someone opens an article it should be reflected in the database by incrementing number of reads by one. Simple.

Sending POST request to the server increments the number of reads by one. The article in question is supplied via URL parameter.

Doing it manually by typing the URL in a browser works as expected. So server side is not at fault.

My problems start with the javascript side of it or rather jquery. I hook the event to the article link. So every time a user clicks on the article link it increments the number of reads like so:

$('#list-articles .article-link').click(function(e){
  var oid = $(this).parent().parent().attr('data-oid').toString(); //Get the article id
  $.post( "/articles/viewed/" + oid );
});

Now this does not work! Number is not increased.

I don't prevent default action since I need the link to actually open and display the article.

Now if I put an alert right after the post like this:

$('#list-articles .article-link').click(function(e){
  var oid = $(this).parent().parent().attr('data-oid').toString(); //Get the article id
  $.post( "/articles/viewed/" + oid );
  alert(oid);
});

This variant works. After I dismiss the alert window, the number is incremented. Why is this so?? How can I fix this to actually work without the alert event present?