XMLhttpRequest > PHP > XMLhttpRequest

Question

I have another question. XMLhttpRequests haunt me. Everything is now in the database but I need this data to update my page on firt page load or reload. The XHR is triggered in JavaScript file which triggers PHP-Script. PHP-Script access MySQL database. But how do I get the fetched records back into my JavaScript for page update. I can not figure it out.

First my synchronous XMLhttpRequest:

function retrieveRowsDB()
{
  if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
  {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari

     xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();

  }
  else
  {// code for IE6, IE5
     xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
  }

  xmlhttp.open("GET","retrieveRowData.php", false);
  xmlhttp.send(null);

  return xmlhttp.responseText;
}

Then my PHP-Script:

<?php

 $con = mysql_connect("localhost","root","*************");
 if (!$con)
 {
   die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
 }

 mysql_select_db("sadb", $con);

 $data="SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY rowdata ASC";

 if (!mysql_query($data,$con))
 {
  die('Error: ' . mysql_error());
 }
 else
 {
  $dbrecords = mysql_query($data,$con); 
 }

 $rowdata = mysql_fetch_array($dbrecords);

 return $rowdata;

        mysql_close($con);

?>

What am I missing here? Anyone got a clue?

Answer 1

PHP scripts don't return to JavaScript. You have to echo the data (encoded in some way, for example json_encode).

Really, if you're doing any kind of ajax, you'll make your life a lot easier by using an ajax library.