Unable to return database query results - php

Question

I'm at the early stages of incorporating a search facility on a website, but I've hit a stumbling block. At the moment, I'm just doing some testing, using jQuery AJAX, but the problem definitely lies in my php:
...
$searchq = $_POST['searchq'];
$output = '';
$db = new PDO($dsn, $mysqluser, $mysqlpass, array(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES => false, PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION));
function getData($db){
// Prepare resource query statement
$stmt = $db->query("SELECT * FROM mod_site_content WHERE alias = ':searchq'");
// Bind paremeters
$stmt->bindParam(':searchq', $searchq, PDO::PARAM_STR);
// Execute query
$stmt->execute();
// Grab result
$output = $stmt->fetchAll();
// Return output
done($output);
};
try {
getData($db);
} catch(PDOException $e){
echo $e->getMessage();
}
function done($out){
echo $out;
}
At the moment I'm just passing the results to console.log() in my AJAX .done() method. The above outputs "Array" with nothing in it, regardless of whether I search for something that should be there or not.
If I change the above slightly to:
function getData($db){
...
$output = $stmt->fetchAll();
$result = implode($output,"--");
// Reture output
done($result);
};
I get nothing back whatsoever.
mod_site_content looks like this:
id | type | alias
-------------------------
1 | document | home
2 | document | projects
...
Thanks.

Answer 1

Your issue is here:
$stmt = $db->query("SELECT * FROM mod_site_content WHERE alias = ':searchq'");
replace it by this:
$stmt = $db->prepare("SELECT * FROM mod_site_content WHERE alias = :searchq");
PDO variable i.e. :searchq shouldn't be surrounded by ' or else PDO will consider them as strings, your code should be giving an error when you try to bind searchq
Additionally notice that I used the prepare() not query(), you need to prepare the query first, then bind params then execute
third issue, you should pass $searchq to your getData function
I copied and pasted your code here, and edited, just to clear my head, can you please test it and tell me if it works?
$searchq = $_POST['searchq'];
$output = '';
$db = new PDO($dsn, $mysqluser, $mysqlpass, array(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES => false, PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION));
function getData($db, $searchq){
// Prepare resource query statement
$stmt = $db->prepare("SELECT * FROM mod_site_content WHERE alias = :searchq");
// Bind paremeters
$stmt->bindParam(':searchq', $searchq, PDO::PARAM_STR);
// Execute query
$stmt->execute();
// Grab result
$output = $stmt->fetchAll();
// Return output
done($output);
};
try {
getData($db, $searchq);
} catch(PDOException $e){
echo $e->getMessage();
}
function done($out){
if(is_array($out)){
print_r($out);
} else {
echo $out;
}
}

Answer 2

echo json_encode($out) and make sure you are expecting a json object on the browser.
No idea offhand why imploding the return value and echoing it out failed to return anything, unless ->fetchAll doesn't return an actual array according to implode, in which case it should be kicking out an error somewhere...