php countering in javascript doesn't work - php

Question

okay here is my code :
var co = 0;
var comp = '';
<?php $i = 0;?>
while (co < <?php echo $db->count_rows(); ?>)
{
if ((parseInt(value) >= <?php echo $mfr[$i] ?>) && (parseInt(value) <= <?php echo $mto[$i] ?>))
{
comp = 'T';
break;
}
co++;
<?php $i++; ?>
}
i'm still learning about this whole php and javascript thing, and i know there are many things that i still had to work to to improve my understanding to this both language. that's why i really need your help in this
i'm trying to get the while iteration to work so i can compare the variable from javascript with variable from php which took the value from database. the php variable ('$mfr' and '$mto'), as you can see, is an array. now i want it to look at every element of both and if it meets the condition then it will update the variable 'comp' and stop the whole while iteration
but the problem is the '$i' variable doesn't do the iteration thing. it runs only once so my '$mfr' and '$mto' value doesn't go anywhere. how can i fix this so i can compare the javascript value with the php '$mfr' and '$mto' value?
your help would be much appreciated, thank you :)
EDIT
well, it is actually a function of custom validation for jqgrid.
and i do know that php is a server-side and javascript is a client-side language theoretically, though i don't really know it is practically
what i'm actually trying to do is when a user input a value and submit it, the system will check whether the value that was entered are between value of 'fromid' and 'toid' column of a table in database
here is my full code of the function
function checkid(value)
{
var co = 0;
var comp = '';
<?php $i = 0;?>
while (co < <?php echo $db->count_rows(); ?>)
{
if ((parseInt(value) >= <?php echo $mfr[$i] ?>) && (parseInt(value) <= <?php echo $mto[$i] ?>))
{
comp = 'T';
break;
}
co++;
<?php echo $i++; ?>
}
if (comp != 'T')
{
return [true, "", ""];
}
else
{
return [false, "Value entered is already between a range. Please try again!", ""];
}
}
while this is how i got the '$mfr' and '$mto' variable
<?php
$db=new database($dbtype, $dbhost, $database, $dbuser, $dbpassword, $port, $dsn);
$db->query("select fromid, toid from CORE_ID");
$i = 0;
while($row = $db->get_row())
{
$mfr[$i] = $row[fromid];
$mto[$i] = $row[toid];
$i++;
}
?>
if theres any better way to do this, then please do tell me

Answer 1

Typically, PHP is for server side logic and JS is for client side logic. If you want to send a value from JS to be processed in PHP, you'll probably need to use something like AJAX, which jQuery makes pretty easy with jQuery.ajax().
Getting the client value to be processed is the difficult part. Once you can do that, rewriting your code logic in full PHP should not be difficult.
EDIT: If I'm misunderstanding where variable value comes from, please say so!
EDIT 2: It looks like you want to have client input compared to server side data. JS will not have access to your PHP variables unless they are specifically sent there. Likewise, you can send your JS value to the server for validation in the PHP.
In your case, you could use JSON to send send the JS your validation dates. Assuming you don't have too many dates, it will probably be faster than sending a value to the server and waiting for a response.
I found a good example of using JSON at another post. You can send an array like:
<?php
$xdata = array(
'foo' => 'bar',
'baz' => array('green','blue')
);
?>
<script type="text/javascript">
var xdata = <?php echo json_encode($xdata); ?>;
alert(xdata['foo']);
alert(xdata['baz'][0]);
// Dot notation can be used if key/name is simple:
alert(xdata.foo);
alert(xdata.baz[0]);
</script>
For your code, you could put $mfr and $mto into a single 2D array. Here is how your new JS might look, assuming xdata contains $mfr and $mto:
function checkid(value) {
var co = 0, comp = '', i = 0, nrows = xdata.mfr.length;
while (co < nrows) {
if ((parseInt(value) >= xdata.mfr[i]) && (parseInt(value) <= xdata.mto[i])) {
comp = 'T';
break;
}
co++;
i++;
}
if (comp != 'T') {
return [true, "", ""];
} else {
return [false, "Value entered is already between a range. Please try again!", ""];
}
}

Answer 2

You have a loop in your Javascript, not your PHP. So the PHP is only going to get executed once. You need to rethink your approach. Without knowing what the script is supposed to actually achieve it's difficult to provide working code, but you at least need to put the loop into the PHP instead of the Javascript.

Answer 3

Before I can answer you should understand what's going on exactly:
PHP is being executed on the server, then sends back the result (HTML and Javascript) to the client (the browser).
Javascript is being executed on the client side. So this only starts after PHP is completely done. For this reason you can't mix Javascript and PHP.
Check the source of the page, then you'll see exactly what the server returns (what HTML/Javascript PHP generates) and you'll get a better insight of what happens.
Now, if you understand this, you may be able to solve your own problem. I don't exactly know what you want to do, but I can advice you that if you need Javascript to check values from the database, you should generate Javascript using PHP that defines these values in the Javascript like for example this:
var my_js_var = <?=$my_php_var?>
var another_var = <?=$another_one?>
Now they are defined in Javascript and you can use them (and check them).
When you have a large database it can become inefficient to do it like this and you might want to look into a technology called AJAX, which allows Javascript to do a request to the server and get back data from a PHP script.
You would also want to do this if there's data involved you don't want to be publicly viewable (because everyone can look into the source of your page.