CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptphp
equazcion
equazcion

Reputation: 594

Is it not feasible to make PHP run on .js pages?

I'm curious about passing PHP output to Javascript. Two things specifically:

Upvotes: 1

Views: 65

Answers (3)

A.L
A.L

Reputation: 10503

The first solution is simpler : declare some JS variables in the output HTML, they can be constant or generated by the PHP code:

<script>
var my_variable = '<?php echo($my_variable); ?>';
</script>

Then you can use this variable in your Javascript code.

The .js files should be static to allow the browser to cache them, so they won't be loaded every time the user loads a page. By generating .js files on the fly with PHP, you may have problems with browsers using cached .js instead of the expected generated file. For example, if your variable contains dynamic content as the last news from your website, a datetime, etc.

So, yes you can do it, but you'll have to prevent the browser to cache the file, increasing the bandwidth usage or expect unexpected behaviours with browsers loading cached .js files. There's no benefit in using this way.

Upvotes: 0

Michael Butler
Michael Butler

Reputation: 6309

You're right on both counts.

  • You can output dynamic content (PHP) in a <script> tag on a .php page
  • You can output dynamic content (PHP) in an all-javascript file, though the extension would still be .php

Example 1

<script type="text/javascript">
var myobject = {
    data: '<?php echo $myPHPvariable; ?>';
};
// or better yet:
var myBetterObject = <?php echo json_encode($myPhpObject); ?>;

function foo () { ... }
</script>

Example 2

Not recommended

<?php
// This is an all-javascript file but the extension ends with .php

header('Content-Type: application/javascript');
?>

var myobject = {
    data: '<?php echo $myPHPvariable; ?>';
};
function foo () { ... }

Then you include that file in your HTML document with:

<script type="text/javascript" src="/custom_javascript.php"></script>

It should definitely end with .php, and thankfully the web browser knows it is JavaScript by the type="text/javascript" part and because your PHP script outputs the right Content-Type header.

Upvotes: 0

Joe Pietroni
Joe Pietroni

Reputation: 826

I'm assuming this can be done safely using script tags on a .php page. Is there any reason not to?

Yes. No reason not to.

Can you make PHP run on .js pages? What configuration changes would be required? And again, would there be a reason not to?

Yes, you would have to configure your webserver to use the PHP module for the .js suffix. On nginx you might add a location line for files ending in .js:-

location ~ \.js$
{
}

On Apache you'd do something like:-

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .js

One reason you might not want to do this, is that any static JS files would go through the PHP module and that would cause additional overhead. Another option would be to reference the PHP file in the HTML script tags eg:-

<script src="myfile.php"></script>

and then make sure your PHP returns its output with the correct content-type eg:-

header('Content-Type: application/javascript');

Upvotes: 2

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