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PHP Data Chart Development Tutorial | Create Charts with PHP and Chart.js

M66 2025-07-15

PHP Data Chart Development Tutorial | Create Charts with PHP and Chart.js

In the digital era, data visualization has become one of the key metrics for assessing products or projects. For developers, it is crucial to use the right tools and techniques to present data charts effectively. PHP, being a popular server-side scripting language, can easily process and display data. In this article, we'll show you how to develop a data chart display feature using PHP and Chart.js.

Choosing a Data Chart Library

There are several excellent open-source data chart libraries available, such as Google Charts and Chart.js, which provide a wide range of chart types and flexible configuration options to meet various needs. In this article, we will demonstrate how to use Chart.js to implement the data chart functionality in PHP.

Including the Chart.js Library

First, you need to include the Chart.js library in your project. You can either include it via CDN or download it locally. Below is the HTML code to include Chart.js using CDN:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>Data Chart Display</title>
  <script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/chart.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
  <canvas id="myChart"></canvas>
</body>
</html>

Fetching Data from the Database

Next, we need to fetch and process data from the database. Suppose we have a database table containing sales data, including sales amounts and dates. Through PHP, we can extract and process this data into a format suitable for Chart.js. Below is a PHP code snippet to fetch the data:

<?php
// Assume the database connection is established
$sql = "SELECT * FROM sales";
$result = $conn->query($sql);

// Initialize an empty array to store the data
$data = array();

if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
  while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
    $data[] = $row;
  }
}

// Convert data to JSON format
$jsonData = json_encode($data);
?>

Rendering the Chart with JavaScript

Once the data is fetched, we can use JavaScript to pass the data to Chart.js and render the chart. Below is a JavaScript code snippet to do this:

<script>
  // Get the JSON data passed from PHP
  var data = <?php echo $jsonData; ?>;

  // Define arrays to store sales dates and amounts
  var labels = [];
  var values = [];

  // Loop through the data and extract the sales date and amount
  data.forEach(function(item) {
    labels.push(item.date);
    values.push(item.amount);
  });

  // Create a new Chart object and render the chart
  var ctx = document.getElementById("myChart").getContext("2d");
  var myChart = new Chart(ctx, {
    type: 'bar',
    data: {
      labels: labels,
      datasets: [{
        label: 'Sales Amount',
        data: values,
        backgroundColor: 'rgba(75, 192, 192, 0.2)',
        borderColor: 'rgba(75, 192, 192, 1)',
        borderWidth: 1
      }]
    },
    options: {
      scales: {
        y: {
          beginAtZero: true
        }
      }
    }
  });
</script>

Conclusion

Through the above code, we fetch sales data from the database using PHP and render it into a bar chart with Chart.js. In real-world development, you can further process the data by filtering, sorting, or adding other information to meet different requirements.

In conclusion, by combining PHP and Chart.js, you can easily develop powerful and visually appealing data chart display functionalities. This not only enhances the user experience but also helps clearly present the data behind the numbers. We hope this article helps you in your development journey.

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