Problem retreiving array values in jquery

Question

My code:

$.get('ajax/time_menus.php', { shift: $('#shifts').val() },      
        function(data) 
     {

      //load the array into a test element so we can see what is returned
      $("#test").html( data );

      //set the hour menu
      var startHour = data[0];
      alert( startHour );
      $('#from_hours').val( data[0] );

      });

Returns an array like this:["08","00","AM","11","00","AM"]

But for some reason the alert( startHour ); line will throw up an alert of: [

What am I doing wrong?

I am receiving this error with Firebug.

site.com/schedule/ajax/time_menus.php?shift=23 GET http://www.sharingizcaring.com/schedule/ajax/time%5Fmenus.php?shift=23

200 OK 296ms jquery-1.3.2.js (line 3633) uncaught exception: [Exception... "Could not convert JavaScript argument arg 0" nsresult: "0x80570009 (NS_ERROR_XPC_BAD_CONVERT_JS)" location: "JS frame :: http://www.sharingizcaring.com/schedule/js/jquery-1.3.2.js :: anonymous :: line 957" data: no]

Answer 1

try working with json by setting the type on the $.get to "json" (by default it returns a HTML/XML response)

Answer 2

It happens because data is a string. You need to receive it as an array in order to obtain what you want. Use the fourth argument of $.get in order to specify the type, in your case JSON:

$.get('ajax/time_menus.php', { shift: $('#shifts').val() }, function(data) {
    ...
}, "json"); // <--here

// or shorter

$.getJSON('ajax/time_menus.php', { shift: $('#shifts').val() }, function(data) {
    ...
});