Pass a database value to JavaScript - php

Question

I retrieved all of my friends' names which are currently online using MySQL joins and PHP.
Now I want to insert their names inside JavaScript for chatting with them.
Friend1
Friend2
I am unable to do this. Because I don't know how to call JavaScript inside PHP or viceversa.
while($get_usernames=mysql_fetch_array($get_users_query)) {
echo '<br>'.$get_usernames['username'];
}
I want to show each of $get_usernames['username'] as Friend1, Friend2, inside JavaScript

Answer 1

You can use AJAX to call a php page and get value from that.
Call the php page and after querying simply return value using echo. You can get that value using responseText in javascript
http://www.tizag.com/ajaxTutorial/ajaxphp.php

Answer 2

If you want to place some PHP variable inside javascript, a simple way of doing it is by simply using the php loop inside your page to create the a tags.
Something like this:
$aTagList = "";
while($get_usernames=mysql_fetch_array($get_users_query)) {
$aTagList .= "<a href='javascript:void(0)' onclick='javascript:chatWith(\"".$get_usernames['username']."\")>".$get_usernames['username']."</a>";
}
Then echo the $aTagList wherever you need it in the page with some inline code.
<?php echo $aTagList; ?>
Not sure if I got all the escaping correct, but it should give you the right idea.

Answer 3

Something like:
<?php
$aUsernames = array();
while($get_usernames=mysql_fetch_array($get_users_query)) {
array_push($aUsernames, $get_usernames['username']);
}
foreach($aUsernames as $name) {
?>
<?= $name; ?>
<?php
}
?>
Using AJAX is much neater ofcourse, but this will suffice if it is all in one PHP file.
Also I would like to encourage you to move to PDO or Mysqli since mysql functions are deprecated.