What is the best way to send PHP array via jquery ?

Question

can anybody help to explain or give reference on how to send array of multiple array (or just array ) in jquery. and what the best way to do when something is failed or successfull. what i mean is how the php code send back the success or failed message

Answer 1

See this article: http://www.prodevtips.com/2008/08/15/jquery-json-with-php-json_encode-and-json_decode/.

Answer 2

Use JSON ENCODE

Something like this:

index.php

<script type="text/javascript" src="jsfile.js"></script>

<a href='numbers.php' class='ajax'>Click</a>   

numbers.php

<?php
     $arr = array ( "one" => "1", "two" => "2", "three" => "3" ); // your array
     echo json_encode( $arr ); // encode it to json
?>

jsfile.js

jQuery(document).ready(function(){
    jQuery('.ajax').live('click', function(event) {
        event.preventDefault();
        jQuery.getJSON(this.href, function(snippets) {
            alert(snippets); // your array in jquery
        });
    });
});

Answer 3

If it is a simple error message and always the same one, you can simply return that string e.g. "error" and test for that value in JavaScript. But I would recommend to send the complec data in XML or even better in JSON (because it is smaller and can be used without poarsing it in JavaScript). Just do this in your PHP:

if($error){
  echo "error";
} else {
    json_encode($complex_data);
}

If you want to put some information into your error, which I highly recommend, just return an error array encoded with JSON. So replace the echo "error" with this:

echo json_encode(array("error" => "your error message", "status" => "an optional error status you can compare in JavaScript"))

Than you just have to check if the "error" is found in the JSON returned from PHP.