php json return creating syntax error on responce

Question

I have looked at many posts here and elswhere on this error without success of resolving my error. In console the form data is being sent via json as expected to my php processing page, the php process is not returning any errors so I'm confident the process is completing. I have checked the way the result is formatted and cannot see anything wrong there, although I'm no expert at ajax/json so I could be wrong, Here is my code

Jquery code

<script type="text/javascript">

$(document).ready(function() {

    $("#admin_login_but").click(function()  {

    if($("#admin_name").val()=="" || $("#admin_password").val()=="" || $("#admin_email").val()=="") {

    $(".adminloginError").html("Please enter Admin Name, Admin Email and Admin Password");

        return false;   

    }else{


    $(".adminloginError").html('<img src="image/ajax-loader.gif" width="16" height="16" alt=""/>');
    var adminName=$("#admin_name").val();
    var adminPassword=$("#admin_password").val();
    var adminEmail=$("#admin_email").val(); 

$.post("includes/admin_login.inc.php",{admin_name:adminName,admin_password:adminPassword, admin_email:adminEmail},function(json)   {
    if(json.result === "success") {
        $(".adminloginError").html( "Welcome "+adminName+"!");

        setTimeout(function(){
              window.location= "admin_secure.php"; 
        },2000);                          

    }else{
        $(".adminloginError").html(json.message);
    }
});
    }

Here is my php processing code

<?php
include_once 'functions.php';
include_once 'db_connect.php';

header("Content-Type: application/json");   //this will tell the browser to send a json object back to client not text/html (as default)

//convert variable (array) into a JSON object

function result($var){
    echo json_encode($var);
    exit();
}

sec_session_start();

error_reporting(E_ALL); ini_set('display_errors', 1);


//check if surname is empty 
  if (isset($_POST["admin_login_but"])) {

//check if first_name is empty  
  if (empty($_POST["admin_name"])) {

        $response = array('result'=>'fail', 'message' => 'Missing Admin Name');
        result($response);

  }else{

// if not empty sanitize first_name input
    $admin_name = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'admin_name', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

  }


 //Check if email is empty and santize and validate email
      if (empty($_POST['admin_email'])) {

        $response = array('result'=>'fail', 'message' => 'Missing Admin Email');
        result($response);

      }else{

        $admin_email = filter_var($_POST['admin_email'], FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
}

        if (!filter_var($admin_email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {

        $response = array('result'=>'fail', 'message' => 'The Email is not in a Valid Email Format!');
        result($response);  

        } 



 //check if register password input is empty
     if (empty($_POST["admin_password"])) {

        $response = array('result'=>'fail', 'message' => 'Missing Admin Password');
        result($response); 

  } else {
//Sanitize the data passed in 'password'
    $admin_password = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'admin_password', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
}

    //validate the data passed in 'password'
    if (!preg_match("/^.*(?=.{8,})(?=.*\d)(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z]).*$/", $admin_password)) {

        $response = array('result'=>'fail', 'message' => 'Password is in the Wrong Format!');
        result($response);

        }  


//query database
$results = mysqli_query($mysqli, "SELECT * FROM admin WHERE name = '$admin_name' AND email = '$admin_email' AND hash = '$admin_password'");

// Check if SQL query had erors 
if(!$results){

        $response = array('result'=>'fail', 'message' => 'sql error: ' . mysqli_error($mysqli));
        result($response);
}

// If query was successfull and there are rows do this:
if (mysqli_num_rows($results)>0){ 

    $_GET['name'] = $admin_name;

    $response = array('result'=>'success', 'message' => 'User is Authenticated');
    result($response);

} else {

    $response = array('result'=>'fail', 'message' => 'User Authentication Failed');
    result($response);

}
}

?>

I cannot figure out how to resolve this. Can anyone help please

Answer 1

I just figured it out, I hadn't put an else option at the end of my php for the initial post check

if(!isset($_POST)) {

//all the processing code


}else{
    $response = array('result'=>'success', 'message' => 'Post is Empty');
    result($response);
}