Question

I’m learning all this web programming stuff after years writing .EXE Windows programs so bear with me.
I developed a basic .php and mysql website that works fine.

But I went to add javascript code to my index.php and I don’t think the javascript code is executing.

My index.php has the form:

<?php

   require_once blah blah

   call_my_php_functionBlah();

?>

Then I added this code inside the php blocks of the ‘<\?\php’ and “\?>” as follows:

<script type="text/javascript">
  // some known-good javascript code that displays an image
</script>

Nothing showed up.
So I thought “ah-HAH, I blew it, all I need to do is — move the javascript code outside
of the php block, at the bottom of index.php, and surely I’m good to go.”

And still, Nothing showed up.

I checked the source of my ‘known-good’ javascript code and it said ’embed this javascript code
in your HTML file’ so I thought “wow, I guess I need an index.html or something here.”

So my questions:

1) should my index.php be able to run the javascript block of code?
I’m guessing ‘No because index.php executes on the server and javascript runs on the client machine.’

2) How should I architect this if I want to keep my index.php, whose code works fine and I don’t want to mess with it?

I’m thinking that this is an extremely basic client/server, php and javascript script organization issue that every web programmer knows how to handle, but like I said, I’m new to all this. I read in the archives about .htaccess etc. etc. but I
bet there’s an easier way, and I’m not sure if the stuff I read applies.

Answer 1

• the file name extension is completely irrelevant
• PHP executes on the server and doesn’t care at all about any Javascript
• code inside <?php ?> tags must of course be valid PHP code to be executed by PHP
• your browser receives whatever the result of your PHP execution is
• you can use PHP code to output Javascript or simply have Javascript on the same page outside of <?php ?> tags
• only whatever the browser receives matters, so use View Source
• look at the browser’s Javascript Console to debug client-side Javascript problems