[Foobarer]

I was looking for a way to periodically change website content (div tag in this example), and found out this code template to do it:

        <script>
            var set_delay = 5000,
                    callout = function () {
                        $.ajax({
                            url: "get_data.php",
                        })
                                .done(function (response) {
                                    $("#change_this_div").html(result);
                                })
                                .always(function () {
                                    setTimeout(callout, set_delay);
                                });
                    };

// initial call
            callout();
        </script>

Now, the get_data PHP file looks like that:

        <?php
        require_once 'connect.php';

        $sql = "SELECT firstname FROM users WHERE id = :id";
        $stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);
        $param_id = //some_id here
        $stmt->bindParam(':id', $param_id, PDO::PARAM_INT);
        $stmt->execute();
        $result = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

        ?>

How do I return the $result, which is the user's first name and display it in the div that I want to change? I can't find out

thanks!

[ArtificialSoldier]

Put all of the data you want to return into an array or object, you can give the keys meaningful names. Then you can use json_encode to turn the array or object into a string that you can use in Javascript to rebuild the same array/object structure. JSON is used all the time for transferring data like that.

[Dormilich]

Mind that you should not use .html() directly on JSON.

[Foobarer]

What should I do then before doing the .html()?

[Dormilich]

process the JSON data and use the necessary methods you need to do so.