How can I populate a javascript array with values from a database using PHP?

Question

I have to create a javascript array whose elements are fetched by php from a database. Is it possible? If so, how?

(I dont want to use ajax to do that)

Answer 1

If you can loop through the database contents, creating an array is simple:

echo "var myArray = [";

Loop through array here and add commas to separate values.

echo "];";

Your myArray variable will be available client-side. It should look something like:

var myArray = [1, 3, 2, 4];

Alternatively and to avoid an extra comma due to loop-based string concatenation, you can write the variable to the client as follows:

echo "var myArray = [];"

...and do the following for each data row:

echo "myArray.push($db_data);"

This is effective, though not quite as clean as the previous approach. You will end up with code similar to the following:

var myArray = [];

myArray.push(3);
myArray.push(5);
myArray.push(1);

alert(myArray); // will display "3, 5, 1"

My apologies for not being too familiar with PHP, but this is something that can be done with any server-side language.