serialization - $(this).serialize() -- How to add a value?

Question

currently I have the following:

$.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    url: this.action,
    data: $(this).serialize(),
});

This works fine, however I would like to add a value to data, so I tried

$.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    url: this.action,
    data: $(this).serialize() + '&=NonFormValue' + NonFormValue,
});

But that didn't post correctly. Any ideas on how you can add an item to the serialize string? This is a global page variable that isn't form specific.

Answer 1

While matt b's answer will work, you can also use .serializeArray() to get an array from the form data, modify it, and use jQuery.param() to convert it to a url-encoded form. This way, jQuery handles the serialisation of your extra data for you.

var data = $(this).serializeArray(); // convert form to array
data.push({name: "NonFormValue", value: NonFormValue});
$.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    url: this.action,
    data: $.param(data),
});