Question

I have an ajax question for you all.
I want to return an array from an ajax call in php and then get the values from that array that I return for use with a jquery ajax call, but I don’t know how to do this. Can anyone point me in the right direction for a tutorial?

I know there’s a bunch of different encoding types for ajax responses (json and xml come to mind) but I don’t know really what there use is. Right now all I do is echo what I have as a response to get some things displayed on my page, but I want to change my current implementation to use an array as the response rather than just simple text. Though I don’t know where to start in looking at tutorials on how to do this.

Also, what is the point of using the encoding types if I can just echo my text out and get what I want? I guess I really don’t see the point of the json type or xml if I can just echo for display.

Answer 1

If you’re returning arrays, I think JSON is the best way to go.

Its actually really easy to do.

PHP:

$array=array();//this is my array

$array=json_encode($array);//encode the array to JSON format, so that jQuery can decode it.

echo $array;//print it on screen

Now use some jQuery:

$.getJSON('http://mysite.com/myphpscript.php', function(my_data){

//now, my_data is your array..

//so access it like this:

alert(my_data.keyname);//"keyname" is an array key of your array

});//end of ajax request

The point of encoding your array is so that jQuery can pick it up as an array (with the help of JSON), and not just standard text.