How to covert json object from PHP to Javascript array

Question

Background Information

I need to "pass" a javascript array to some front end logic that someone else wrote. in reviewing their code, I see they are creating dummy data like this:

<script>
//define some sample data
 var tabledata = [
    {id:1, name:"JohnDoe", company:"Acme", email:"[email protected]", title:"CEO", regtype:"12345"},
    {id:2, name:"JaneDoe", company:"Widgets Inc", email:"[email protected]", title:"Programmer", regtype:"12345"}    
 ];

My logic is all the backend stuff that gets real data from a database. I get back a json string that looks like this:

{
    "items": [{
        "id": 2089025,
        "first_name": "Devon",
        "last_name": "Ackerman"
    }, {
        "id": 2163367,
        "first_name": "Ryan",
        "last_name": "Acuff"
    }]
}

Problem

I don't know the correct way to convert/cast this in PHP to make it end up as an array in Javascript.

Code

This is the code I have so far in PHP that a) proves I'm getting a string b) tries to convert it to a json object.

$json_obj = json_decode($response, true);
//echo json_last_error();
echo gettype($response);
echo gettype($json_obj);

The first gettype() returns "string". The second returns "array".

A few lines later, i finish the PHP section and I do this:

<script type="text/javascript">
// pass PHP variable declared above to JavaScript variable
var tabledata = <?php echo ($json_obj) ?>;
console.log(typeof(tabledata))
console.log(tabledata)

I see the following in the console as the output for the two calls to console.log():

function
ƒ Array() { [native code] }

can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

Answer 1

var tabledata = <?php echo ($json_obj) ?>;

Should be...

var tabledata = <?php echo json_encode($json_obj) ?>;

This will turn it into json, and the browser will auto parse it for you when the page loads.

In your case, since you already started with an encoded value, you could just use that.

var tabledata = <?php echo $response ?>;

Or I believe PHP has a shortcut for echoing that you could also do...

var tabledata = <?= $response ?>;