Question

I am trying to make json data in php using json_encode() function. Then I will use this data on the client side. I acheived some of the part. My current code displays json data in this format

{
"data":
{
    "tag":"home",
    "success":1,
    "error":0,
    "uid":"4fc8f94f1a51c5.32653037",
    "name":"Zafar Saleem",
    "profile_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/profile_photos\/profile1.jpg",
    "places":
    {
        "place_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/places_photos\/place1.jpg",
        "created_at":"2012-06-02 00:00:00",
        "seeked":"0"
    }
}
}
{
"data":
{
    "tag":"home",
    "success":1,
    "error":0,
    "uid":"4fc9c413554104.22444656",
    "name":"Name",
    "profile_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/profile_photos\/profile2.jpg",
    "places":
    {
        "place_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/places_photos\/place2.jpg",
        "created_at":"2012-06-03 00:00:00",
        "seeked":"0"
    }
}
}
{
"data":
{
    "tag":"home",
    "success":1,
    "error":0,
    "uid":"4fc9c48c529675.45551665",
    "name":"Name",
    "profile_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/profile_photos\/profile3.jpg",
    "places":
    {
        "place_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/places_photos\/place3.jpg",
        "created_at":"2012-06-04 00:00:00",
        "seeked":"20"
    }
}
}

what I want to show above data in this form

{
"data": 
[
    {
        "tag":"home",
        "success":1,
        "error":0,
        "uid":"4fc8f94f1a51c5.32653037",
        "name":"Zafar Saleem",
        "profile_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/profile_photos\/profile1.jpg",
        "places":
        {
            "place_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/places_photos\/place1.jpg",
            "created_at":"2012-06-02 00:00:00",
            "seeked":"0"
        }
    },
    {
        "tag":"home",
        "success":1,
        "error":0,
        "uid":"4fc9c413554104.22444656",
        "name":"Name",
        "profile_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/profile_photos\/profile2.jpg",
        "places":
        {
            "place_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/places_photos\/place2.jpg",
            "created_at":"2012-06-03 00:00:00",
            "seeked":"0"
        }
    },
    {
        "tag":"home",
        "success":1,
        "error":0,
        "uid":"4fc9c48c529675.45551665",
        "name":"Name",
        "profile_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/profile_photos\/profile3.jpg",
        "places":
        {
            "place_photo":"http:\/\/example.info\/android\/places_photos\/place3.jpg",
            "created_at":"2012-06-04 00:00:00",
            "seeked":"20"
        }
    }
]
}

here is my php code that generates json data

database function that gets data from database

 public function getHome() {
    $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM places") or die(mysql_error());
    // check for result
    $no_of_rows = mysql_num_rows($result);
    if ($no_of_rows > 0) {
        while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC)) {
            $data[] = $row;
        }
        return $data;
        /*
        $result = mysql_fetch_array($result);
        return $result;
        */
    } else {
        // user not found
        return false;
    }
}

here is where I make json on php

if($db->getHome()) {
        $data = $db->getHome();
        foreach($data as $r) {
            $response['success'] = 1;
            $response['uid'] = $r['uid'];
            $response['name'] = $r['name'];
            $response['profile_photo'] = $r['profile_photo_path'];
            $response['places']['place_photo'] = $r['place_photo_path'];
            $response['places']['latitude'] = $r['latitude'];
            $response['places']['longitude'] = $r['longitude'];
            $response['places']['created_at'] = $r['created_at'];
            $response['places']['seeked'] = $r['total_completed'];
            echo json_encode(array('data' => $response));
        }
    } else {
        $response['error'] = 1;
        $response['error_msg'] = 'No data available';
        echo json_encode($response);
    }

Answer 1

Consider making the code look like this:

// this function turns a database row into data for frontend use
function convert_to_response($r)
{
  return array(
    'success' => 1,
    'uid' => $r['uid'],
    'name' => $r['name'],
    'profile_photo' => $r['profile_photo_path'],
    'places' => array(
      'place_photo' => $r['place_photo_path'],
      'latitude' => $r['latitude'],
      'longitude' => $r['longitude'],
      'created_at' => $r['created_at'],
      'seeked' => $r['total_completed'],
    ),
  );
}

if($db->getHome()) {
        $data = $db->getHome();
        echo json_encode(array(
            'data' => array_map('convert_to_response', $data) // convert data array
        ));
    } else {
        $response['error'] = 1;
        $response['error_msg'] = 'No data available';
        echo json_encode($response);
    }

Your code was echoing out each data row by itself, so that’s why you weren’t seeing an array (using square brackets).

I’ve also made your code a bit clearer by moving the response conversion into a separate function; this way it can be used by functions such as array_map to convert an array of data in one format to another format.

Hope it helps.