Web Coding & Development All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 1

Melding PHP and JavaScript with Ajax and JSON

IN THIS CHAPTER

Making sense of Ajax

Loading server data into a page element

Sending data to and receiving data from the server

Getting to know JSON

Using JSON to work with complex data from the server

Basically, what “Ajax” means is “JavaScript now works.” And that in turn means that web-based applications can now be made to work much more like desktop ones.

— PAUL GRAHAM

When coding web pages, it feels like there’s a great divide between the browser front end and the server back end. When you’re working on the front end, you can use HTML tags, CSS properties, and JavaScript code to build, style, and animate your pages. When you’re working on the back end, you can use MySQL and PHP code to define, access, and manipulate data. That all works, but front-end code without back-end data produces a lifeless page, whereas back-end data without front-end code produces useless information. To create a truly dynamic web page, you need ...