json string into array? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Taking .get json string, turn into array?

Im using the following to retrieve a string from php, i would like to know how to make my string into an array.

Jquery

$.get("get.php", function(data){
    alert(data);
    //alert($.parseJSON(data));
}, "json");

the commented out section seems to have no effect, so I cant really tell what I am doing wrong, could someone please advice?

PHP

<?php

$username="root";
$password="root";
$database="testing";

mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");

$name= $_GET['name'];

$query="SELECT * FROM tableone ";
$result=mysql_query($query);

$num=mysql_numrows($result);

mysql_close();

$array = array();

$i=0;
while ($i < $num) {

    $first=mysql_result($result,$i,"firstname");
    $last=mysql_result($result,$i,"lastname");
    $date=mysql_result($result,$i,"date");
    $ID=mysql_result($result,$i,"id");

    $array[$i] = $first;

    $i++;
}

echo json_encode($array);

?>

Output:

["James","Lydia","John"]

Answer 1

$.getJSON("get.php", function(data) {
    // data is already an array => you can loop to get individual elements
    // for example
    $.each(data, function(index, element) {
        alert(element);
    });
});

Also make sure that in your PHP file you have set the proper Content-Type response header top application/json.