Question

I have been trying to extract data from a database and fill in a drop down list generated by JavaScript. However the PHP code doesn’t seem to work at all.
Here is the snippet code I am working with:

<script type="text/javascript">
    $(document).ready( function () {$('#mainTable').dataTable({}).makeEditable({
   "aoColumns": [
{
    indicator: 'Saving Items...',
    tooltip: 'Click to select Items',
    loadtext: 'loading...',
    type: 'select',
    onblur: 'submit',
    <?php
        $item_set = get_all_items();
    while($item = mysql_fetch_array($item_set)){
      ?>
       data: "{'0':'Please select...', '1':'A'+' <? echo $item["item_desc"] ?> '}",
    <?php
        }
    ?>
      sUpdateURL: function(value, settings){
   alert("Custom function for posting       results");
   return value;
 }
 },                 
 {
 }
 ]
 });
} );
</script>

I have tried the code in a simple HTML form and it works just fine. Btw I am using jQuery editable datatable
http://code.google.com/p/jquery-datatables-editable/wiki/Overview

I just want to populate the select menu with data from the database. Any help is appreciated.

Here is the generated page:
I the first column of the table, the drop down list must also have item description from DB.

Answer 1

View your HTML source. You’ll see that you have multiple data lines. Use json_encode to convert an array to Json instead of trying to string it together.

<?php
    $item_set = get_all_items();
    while($item = mysql_fetch_array($item_set)){
        $items[] = $item['item_desc'];
    }
?>

---

data: <?php echo json_encode($items); ?>,