So, I have page where a PHP script echoes out all of my HTML

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Asked: May 23, 20262026-05-23T15:03:07+00:00 2026-05-23T15:03:07+00:00

So, I have page where a PHP script echoes out all of my HTML

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So, I have page where a PHP script echoes out all of my HTML including some javascript. The javascript function in question is supposed to be executed when a select box is changed but everytime I change the select box I get an error in my javascript console saying that the function is undefined.

I’ve even reduced the function to simply displaying an alert box to help in debugging but I’m still getting the error.

Here’s the PHP function responsible for creating the select box:

function CreateMainSelect()
{
    $html = "<select name=\"main_select\" onChange=\"test()\" id=\"main_select\" >";
    $html .= "<option value='all'>All</option>";
    $html .= "<option value='past'>Past</option>";
    $html .= "<option value='current_and_future'>Current and Future</option>";
    $html .= "<option value='date_range'>Date Range</option>";
    $html .= "</select>";

    return $html;
}

Totally unnecessary to have it in a function but I need to slightly modify another similar function already in place so please don’t be too upset with me!!

And here’s the echoed javascript function:

echo '<script type="text/javascript">';
echo 'function test()';
echo '{';
echo 'alert("hello world");';
echo '}';
echo '</script>';

The javascript is being echoed out at the bottom of the PHP file. I’ve tried moving it to the top as well but that didn’t change anything.

EDIT: Thanks for the replies everyone, all of your advice has been very helpful. I figured out the problem and as many as two things were going wrong. The first problem was that my browser was (I think anyways) caching my javascript so older buggy versions of my function were getting called which was why a perfectly fine function was appearing to create errors. Solved by clearing my cache.

The other problem (I think) was that the javascript function was not, in fact, being loaded before it was being executed. I solved this by putting the javascript in a separate .JS file and linking it to the .PHP file.