XML Parsing Error: no root element found

Question

I am trying to search for all properties in a database that are in one suburb. I have read that it has something to do with the HTML code 204 but I still do not undertand wh

Answer 1

As you seem to be using an Ajax function that is not shown it is hard to determine the root cause of the problem because nothing above, as far as I can tell, would yield the error you allude to in the title of the posting - namely "XML Parsing Error: no root element found" - I wonder therefore if there should be a configuration option in Ajax.Request that needs to be set to deal with a basic string response?

That aside you might be able to make use of the following - perhaps even for diagnosis purposes.

<?php

    /*
        ---------------
        basicSearch.php
        ---------------
    */

    $dbhost =   'localhost';
    $dbuser =   'admin'; 
    $dbpwd  =   '12345'; 
    $dbname =   'realestate';

    $db = new mysqli( $dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpwd, $dbname );

    $sql='select * from `properties` where `suberb`=?';
    $stmt=$db->prepare( $sql );

    if( $stmt ){

        $searcharea = $_POST['searchAreaBar'];

        $stmt->bind_param( 's', $searcharea );
        $stmt->execute();
        $stmt->store_result();
        $stmt->bind_result( $suberbs );
        $stmt->fetch();

        echo $stmt->num_rows()==0 ? "No" : "Yes";

    }
    $stmt->close();
    $db->close();
?>

<script>
    /* reuseable utility ajax function */
    function ajax( method, url, params, callback, options ){
        var xhr=new XMLHttpRequest();
        xhr.onreadystatechange=function(){
            if( xhr.readyState==4 && xhr.status==200 )callback.call( this, xhr.response, options, xhr.getAllResponseHeaders() );
        };

        var async=params.hasOwnProperty('async') ? params.async : true;
        var query=[];

        for( var n in params )query.push(n+'='+params[n]);

        switch( method.toLowerCase() ){
            case 'post': query=query.join('&'); break;
            case 'get': url+='?'+query.join('&'); params=null; break;
        }

        xhr.open( method.toUpperCase(), url, async );
        xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-Type','application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
        xhr.send( params );
    }


    /* function that does the search */
    function function basicSearch(){
        /* configure the parameters to be used in the ajax request */
        var method='post';
        var url='basicSearch.php';
        var params={
            searchAreaBar:document.getElementById('searchAreaBar').value,
            sid:Math.random()
        };
        var callback=function(r,o,h){
            alert( r ? 'Success' : 'Error! No Properties Found!' )
        }
        var options={};

        /* call the ajax function */
        ajax.call(this,method, url, params, callback, options);
    }
</script>

Answer 2

The error was that the browser's compiler was "commenting out" all the php and adding empty HTML tags. It was then getting confused as there was an "empty" document.

This was because the website (including JS, PHP and HTML files) were being stored and run from a local directory. For example:

the URL read: file:///C:/xampp/htdocs/"Project Name"/Index.html

the correct URL is: localhost/"Project Name"

IF you are using XAMPP, the folder containing all your project files need to be placed in the htdocs folder in the xampp directory.