get_customer_names.php

<?php
//require database connection and session varibales
require_once './includes/class.dbc.php';
require_once './includes/functions.php';

//create an instance of the database connection
$db = new dbc();
$dbc = $db->connect();

//Grab the member_id
$customer_name = filter($_POST['key']);

$names = [];


$query = "SELECT `sales_agent` FROM `sales_ref`
        WHERE `sales_agent` LIKE '%$customer_name%' GROUP BY `sales_agent` ";
$result = mysqli_query($dbc, $query);

if(mysqli_num_rows($result) >= 1)
{
    while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result))
    {
        $out = $row['sales_agent'];
        array_push($names, $out);
    }


}

//get the names from the customers table too
$query = "SELECT `customer_name` FROM `customers`
        WHERE `customer_name` LIKE '%$customer_name%' ";
$result = mysqli_query($dbc, $query);

if(mysqli_num_rows($result) >= 1)
{
    while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result))
    {
        $out = $row['customer_name'];
        array_push($names, $out);
    }


}

echo json_encode($names);


?>