multiple return values from PHP with jQuery AJAX

Question

I\'m using this jQuery code:

$.ajax
({
    type: \"POST\",
    url: \"customerfilter.php\",
    data: dataString,
    cache: false,
    success: function(htm         


        

Answer 1

Use json_encode() to convert an associative array from PHP into JSON and use $.getJSON(), which will return a Javascript array.

Example:

<?php echo json_encode(array("a" => "valueA", "b" => "valueB")); ?>

In Javascript:

$.getJSON("myscript.php", function(data) {
  alert("Value for 'a': " + data.a + "\nValue for 'b': " + data.b);
});

Answer 2

Make your response return JSON, you'll need to change your jQuery to this, so the expected dataType is json:

$.ajax
({
    type: "POST",
    url: "customerfilter.php",
    dataType: 'json',
    cache: false,
    success: function(data)
    {
        $(".custName").html(data.message1);
        $(".custName2").html(data.message2);
    }
});

Then you need to encode your response as a JSON Array:

 <?php echo json_encode(
      array("message1" => "Hi", 
      "message2" => "Something else")
 ) ?>

Answer 3

Why don't you return a JSON object. This way you can easily put many different results inside the ajax response.