Getting odd results through AJAX - php

Question

Related to: Query Database through Javascript / PHP
This question is related to my above question. I fixed the PHP script to the one as mentioned in one of my answers; I attempted to use $.getJSON to no avail. So I stuck with my original method of getting a response from the server:
function getDatabaseRows()
{
var xmlHttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
xmlHttp.onreadystatechange = function()
{
if(xmlHttp.readyState == 4)
{
alert(xmlHttp.responseText);
}
}
xmlHttp.open("POST", "myDomain.com/subDirectory/getRowCounts.php", true);
xmlHttp.send(null);
}
When the alert runs, it acts as if it is a text file, and gets the entire contents of my PHP script. It doesn't run the script, it merely grabs a text-copy of it off of the server. My script (which is linked in the earlier question) is:
$rowCounts = array();
$dbhost = 'host';
$dbuser = 'host';
$dbpass = 'host';
$dbase = 'host';
$fields = array(
'MaxTID' => array('tab' => 'TransData', 'col' => 'TID'),
'MaxSID' => array('tab' => 'FullData', 'col' => 'SID'),
'MaxFID' => array('tab' => 'SalamanderData', 'col' => 'FID'),
'MaxOID' => array('tab' => 'OthersData', 'col' => 'OID')
);
$con = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass) or die('Error connecting to mysql');
mysql_select_db($dbase, $con) or die(mysql_error());
foreach ($fields as $id => $info) {
$sql = "SELECT MAX({$info['col']}) FROM {$info['tab']}";
$result = mysql_query($sql, $con);
if (!$result) die('Could not query:' . mysql_error());
$rowCounts[$id] = mysql_result($result, 0);
}
echo json_encode($rowCounts);
mysql_close($con);
Any clue as to why my AJAX script returns a text-copy of the PHP script on the server; and not the JSON results I am looking for?
EDIT:
Pointing my browser to the PHP script returns:
{"MaxTID":"1","MaxFID":null,"MaxSID":"3","MaxOID":"1"}

Answer 1

$.getJSON is jQuery, so you would need to include it in your page:
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
$.getJSON('http://myDomain.com/subDirectory/getRowCounts.php', function(response) {
console.log(response);
});
</script>

Answer 2

Javascript is going to pull down whatever the http server gives it. So if the http server is not configured correctly to process your server-side script I.E. php, then you're going to get the contents of the file instead of the processed html output from running the php script. Contact your server admin to get it fixed, and verify that you are using a .php extension on your file and not .txt.

Answer 3

Found the solution.
The problem arrises from the fact that I was working on a network share drive ....which also happened to be living on the web server.
So whenever I went to test the script, it would fetch my file like so:
file:////mySubDomain.myDomain.com/getRowCounts.php ... Which obviously can't work, considering it isn't being served by the server.
Fixed by changing file://// to http://