I'm learning the basics of PHP and am trying to create the most basic PHP backend possible, with a JS/jQuery frontend. My current problem is that a GET request does not execute the .php file, like I was expecting, but instead returns a whole page.
I've tried many jQuery and PHP scripts based on tutorials and stack overflow posts, and the current configuration is based on this post here.
I have read some other StackOverflow posts about this issue here, here, and here but couldn't get those solutions to work, or didn't understand the answer.
Here's my setup: I have an index.html page that will render the results of my jQuery AJAX request & a data.json.php page, where I would like a basic response to be sent from. These files are in the same directory.
--- jquery.js ---
$(function () {
$.ajax({
url: "data.json.php",
success: function(result){
alert(result);
}
});
});
---data.json.php---
<?php
header('Content-Type: application/json');
$output = "hello"
echo json_encode($output);
?>
I am using the live server addon to render the html and I have started the php server through the command php -S localhost:4000.
I do get an alert, but it's returning the contents of the .php file rather than executing it. I think that I may be misunderstanding how to start the PHP server correctly, the proper way of running a PHP script, or how the flow of information goes.
Any help, tips, or resources would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
test.php content:
<?php
header('Content-Type: application/json');
$output = "hello";
echo json_encode($output);
test.html content:
<html>
<head>
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.2.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<script>
$(function () {
$.ajax({
url: "http://localhost:4000/test.php",
success: function(result){
alert(result);
}
});
});
</script>
</body>
</html>