How to access multidimensional array data?

Question

I have an array that I can't access the data of.

$.get("url"), function(data) {
    console.log(data);
}

Console output:

Array( 
    [0] => Array ( [element0] => 1 [element1] => value1 [element2] => value2 )
    [1] => Array ( [element0] => 2 [element1] => value1 [element2] => value2 )
)

Now I'm trying to access the elements with data[0], data[0]["element0"] and what not, but I either get nothing or it returns the characters at that position instead of the data. How do I access the elements properly?

[This will likely be useful](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/988363/how-can-i-debug-my-javascript-code) — Liam, Apr 23 '15 at 10:32
need to send json output from server which will give you array of objects as there are no associative arrays in javascript — charlietfl, Apr 23 '15 at 10:32
PHP simply uses print_r to print the result from a db query. I now changed "print_r($db_result)" to "echo json_encode($db_result)", but still the same problem. I guess I need JSON.parse. — user23424, Apr 23 '15 at 10:42
use `$.getJSON()` or set `dataType` argument of `$.get()` if you aren't setting content-type header at server — charlietfl, Apr 23 '15 at 10:44

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 23 '15 at 10:42

It looks like you are using PHP to output your data. PHP and JavaScript cannot communicate with each other. They 'speak' different languages. You have to find a way for those two scripts to get along. I recommend you to encode your PHP array to a JSON string.

//PHP
header("Content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8");
$data = array(
  array(
    'element0' => 1,
    'element1' => 'value1',
    'element2' => 'value2',
  ),
   array(
    'element0' => 1,
    'element1' => 'value1',
    'element2' => 'value2',
  ),
);
echo json_encode($data);

JavaScript can decode JSON, since you are using jQuery to make your XHR request, jQuery will automatically decode the JSON to a JavaScript object because we set the JSON headers.

$.get("url"), function(data) {
  console.log(data[0].element1); //gives output: 'value1'
}

Good luck!

How to access multidimensional array data?

1 Answers1