Modify Array to Output in JSON using PHP and jQuery - php

Question

I'm currently working with the jQuery Autocomplete Plugin.
The code they provided in the demonstration is:
<?php
$q = strtolower($_GET["q"]);
$items = array(
"Peter Pan"=>"peter#pan.de",
"Molly"=>"molly#yahoo.com",
);
$result = array();
foreach ($items as $key) {
if (strpos(strtolower($key), $q) !== false) {
array_push($result, array(
"name" => $key
));
}
}
echo json_encode($result);
?>
I'd like to know how I can modify this code to output my own array from my MySQL database.
I've tried on my own modification, but I'm not doing it correctly. This is what I am trying:
$q = strtolower($_GET["q"]);
$sql = "SELECT name from user_info";
require("connection.php");
$result = mysql_db_query($DBname,$sql,$link) or die(mysql_error());
$rows = array();
while($r = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$rows[] = $r;
foreach ($rows as $key) {
if (strpos(strtolower($key), $q) !== false) {
array_push($result, array(
$key
));
}
}
}
print json_encode($rows);
And this is my jQuery/Javascript:
$("#email").autocomplete('emails.php', {
multiple: false,
dataType: "json",
parse: function(data) {
return $.map(data, function(row) {
return {
data: row,
value: row.name,
result: row.name
}
});
},
formatItem: function(item) {
return format(item);
}
}).result(function(e, item) {
$("#content").append("<p>selected " + format(item) + "</p>");
});
});
As a result, Firebug shows that it throws the following error:
value is undefined
Any help on getting my query setup properly would be greatly aprpeciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

I think that this occurs because you using a array converted in json, then you need to use how an array too in jquery result. Or you can do a json string without using json, in the format: '[{"name":"john","year":2009},{"name":"tom","year":2000},...]'.

Answer 2

Your jquery is fine. After several hours I found out that it was the formatting in the 'format' function that was triggering the error.
If you look at the source code at
http://jquery.bassistance.de/autocomplete/demo/json.html
You'll see the following, seemingly inconsequential function
function format(mail) {
return mail.name + " <" + mail.to + "&gt";
}
If you're leaving out the 'less than' and 'greater than' representations, then you're probably getting the
value is undefinded
error after the first record is looped through in your console. For some strange reason the less than and greater than symbols are significant. Make sure you keep them in your format function.