how do i get JS call to work from within a PHP page. Here is my stripped code. please note the multiple file names.

file1.php - calls JS function in file2.js (working fine).
file2.js - makes http_request to file3.php to do some stuff. (working fine)
file3.php - check some stuff in the db (working), then makes the following JS call to a <span> in file1.php (not working)

echo" <script language=Javascript><!--";
echo" document.getElementById('email_hint').style.visibility = 'visible';";
echo" //--></script>";

file1.php <span> tag

<span id="email_hint" style="visibility:hidden;">Email all ready assigned to a member.</span>

My questions is why does the <span> never hear/process the getElementById call? Could it be that the call to the *document.* only refers to elements in file3.php? What say you?

FYI, file3.php is all php, it has no HTML.

This doesn't have anything to do with PHP. All of the PHP is done processing and has outputted 100%, before your browser even begins to look at the client-side code. The more likely answer is that the <span id="email_hint"... has not finished loading it at the time you are trying to access it via getElementById. document.getElementById statements can only have access to DOM elements after all of the HTML has loaded, which means they must either be inside of an "onload" event, or else at the bottom of the page.

SOLUTION - Thanks to *Stryker250* and all other who helped me get on the right track.

(FYI.. trim() function is part of this lib - PHP to Javascript Project, http://kevin.vanzonneveld.net/techbl...pjs_licensing/)

file2.js - Listened for the XHR "responseText" value sent back from the requested page. Depending on the reply, I did something.

        if (trim(http_request.responseText)=='email'){
            document.getElementById('email_hint').style.visibility = 'visible';
        }else if(trim(http_request.responseText)=='email_new'){
            document.getElementById('email_hint').style.visibility = 'hidden';
        }

file3.php - Depending on what was PHP'd from data send by file2.js, I echo'd either "email" or "email_new". (As is in my script, nothing else can be echo'd on the page.)