Question

I’m trying to display a PHP variable using javascript/jquery but it’s displaying ‘null’.

if(mysql_num_rows($checkBan) > 0){
            $bannedDate = $checkBan['banLength'];
            if(preg_match('/[0-9]/',$bannedDate)){      
                list($yyyy,$mm,$dd) = explode('-',$bannedDate);
                 $date = $mm."-".$dd."-".$yyyy;
            }

            //$date = "test"; when this is uncommented it appears in the alert so I know the json_encode is working fine

            ?>
            <script type ="text/javascript">
               var bannedUntil= <?php echo json_encode($date); ?>;
               alert('Your account has been banned until ' + bannedUntil +'. Please contant an administrator if you believe this is an error');
            </script>
            <?

        } 

The alert appears just fine, but the bannedUntil variable is null. However, when the second date variable is uncommented it appears in the alert. It’s not a separate function so I don’t see why the scope would be an issue.

Answer 1

I am seeing you use $checkBan as a result resource in mysql_num_rows(), then attempt to access an array key from it without fetching. You appear to be missing a call to mysql_fetch_assoc():

if(mysql_num_rows($checkBan) > 0){
        // Fetch a row from the result resource $checkBan
        $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($checkBan);
        $bannedDate = $row['banLength'];
        // etc...
}

Another tip: It looks like you are getting a standard MySQL date format back as YYYY-MM-DD and converting it with string operations in PHP to MM-DD-YYYY. Just retrieve it in that format in your query to begin with and avoid the explode() and list() calls in your PHP application code.

SELECT DATE_FORMAT(banLength, '%m-%d-%Y') FROM yourtable