PHP function not browsable - php

Question

I'm trying to build an API with a JSON output, the second function is producing the desired output however I can't call it from the web. Whereas the first function returns as expected a large mass of text. Am I using something that is not compatible? I'm using version PHP 5.5.9 on an Ubuntu 14.04 server.
I can view the result of this function in both the terminal and the browser;
<?php
class ArticlesAPI {
function top() {
$db = new mysqli("mysql-host.rds.amazonaws.com", "user", "password", "db_name");
$results = $db->query("SELECT article_id, title, summary FROM top_articles");
while ($row = $results->fetch_assoc()) {
echo $row['article_id'];
echo $row['title'];
echo $row['summary'];
}
$results->close();
}
}
$api = new ArticlesAPI;
$api->top();
?>
This function only returns a result in the terminal;
<?php
class ArticleAPI {
function top() {
$db = new mysqli("mysql-host.rds.amazonaws.com", "user", "password", "db_name");
$results = $db->query("SELECT article_id, title, summary FROM top_articles");
$articles = array();
while($article = $results->fetch_assoc()){
$article_id = $article['article_id'];
$articles[$article_id][] = $article['title'];
$articles[$article_id][] = $article['summary'];
}
$results->close();
$db->close();
$json = json_encode($articles);
echo $json;
}
}
$api = new ArticleAPI;
$api->top();
?>

Answer 1

There are 2 separate configuration files for CLI and for WEB check them and check server configuration(if http server parse php files etc.) you can do simple <?php echo 'hello world'; and see if output is correct. If you open it via browser and you see anything more than hello world then PHP parser is not enabled.
Also when you output JSON you should set proper header for browser application/json
Check your output buffering settings. Maybe you use ob_* functions and don't flush output to browswer
Try putting exit after echo and check script after.
Set error_reporting(E_ALL); and ini_set('display_errors', 1); in first line of your app to check if there are errors.