How to retrieve dates for beforeShowDay in Jquery-ui datepicker - ajax

Question

I am needing to disable some dates in jquery-ui
The following code works perfectly:
var unavailableDates =["19-6-2020","21-6-2020","29-6-2020"];
var dateToday = new Date();
var dateToday=
$(function() {
$( "#date_picker" ).datepicker({
dateFormat: 'dd-mm-yy',
minDate: dateToday,
onSelect: function(dateText) {
alert("Selected date: " + dateText);
},
beforeShowDay:unavailable
});
});
function unavailable(date) {
//alert ("Function"+unavailableDates);
dmy = date.getDate() + "-" + (date.getMonth() + 1) + "-" + date.getFullYear();
if ($.inArray(dmy, unavailableDates) == -1) {
return [true, ""];
} else {
return [false, "", "Unavailable"];
}
}
However I am needing to retrieve the unavailable dates from a mysql database. this is the ajax return:
["19-6-2020","21-6-2020","29-6-2020"]
The string is created by php thus:
$temp="[";
while ($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
$ date=date("j-n-Y", strtotime($row["date_unavailable"]));
$ temp=$temp.'"'.$date.'",';
}//end while
$temp = rtrim($temp, ",");
$temp=$temp."]";
echo $temp;
exit();
When I try to use this returned string none of the unavailable dates show. The string is actually detected by the unavailable function but it is ignoring it (no errors displayed)
There is obviously a problem with the returned string but I cant see what it is.
Any pointers to the problem much appreciated

Answer 1

Consider the following JavaScript:
$(function() {
function getUnDates() {
var results;
$.getJSON("getDates.php", function(data) {
results = data;
});
return results;
}
function unavailable(date) {
var dmy = $.datepicker.formatDate("dd-mm-yy", date);
var result = [false, "", "Unavailable"];
if ($.inArray(dmy, unavailableDates) == -1) {
result = [true, ""];
}
return result;
}
var unavailableDates = getUnDates();
var dateToday = new Date();
$("#date_picker").datepicker({
dateFormat: 'dd-mm-yy',
minDate: dateToday,
onSelect: function(dateText) {
alert("Selected date: " + dateText);
},
beforeShowDay: unavailable
});
});
Then use this in a Stand Alone PHP Script:
$results = array();
while ($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
$date = date("j-n-Y", strtotime($row["date_unavailable"]));
array_push($result, $date);
}
header('Content-Type: application/json');
echo json_encode($result);
exit();