Question

I am trying to send a JSON file to do some testing. I have a simple test file that creates a Multi-dimensional array. Here is the test file:

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', '1');

$user['Mongo'] = null; 
$user['Facebook'] = 12345;
$user['Twitter'] = null;
$user['Foursquare'] = null;
$user['Google'] = null;
$user['Name'] = "Bill Gates";
$user['Sex'] = 'M';
$user['Age'] = 26;
$user['Birthday'] = "1985-08-13";
$user['Friends'][0]['Mongo'] = null;
$user['Friends'][0]['Facebook'] = 123456;
$user['Friends'][0]['Twitter'] = null;
$user['Friends'][0]['Foursquare'] = null;
$user['Friends'][0]['Google'] = null;
$user['Friends'][0]['Name'] = "John Smith";
$user['Friends'][0]['Relationship'] = "Open";
$user['Friends'][1]['Mongo'] = null;
$user['Friends'][1]['Facebook'] = 1234567;
$user['Friends'][1]['Twitter'] = null;
$user['Friends'][1]['Foursquare'] = null;
$user['Friends'][1]['Google'] = null;
$user['Friends'][1]['Name'] = "Martina McBride";
$user['Friends'][1]['Relationship'] = "Open";

$user_json = json_encode($user);

$call = curl_init('http://MY_IP_HERE/user_login.php');

curl_setopt($call, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "POST");
curl_setopt($call, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $user_json);
curl_setopt($call, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($call, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: application/json', 'Content-Length: '.strlen($user_json)));

$result = curl_exec($call);
curl_close($call);

echo $result;
?>

I am trying to retrieve the file like so:

<?php
include_once('interaction_class.php');

error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', '1');

$fp = fopen('php://input', 'r');
$rawData = stream_get_contents($fp);

$user = json_decode($rawData);

if ($user['Mongo'] == null)
{
    $user_id = $interaction->new_guest($user);
}
//...Other stuff...

I am getting an error about Object of class stdCLass on my if statement line. So, I did a var_dump() and this is the result:

object(stdClass)#1 (10) 
{ 
    ["Mongo"] => NULL 
    ["Facebook"] => int(12345) 
    ["Twitter"] => NULL 
    ["Foursquare"] => NULL 
    ["Google"] => NULL 
    ["Name"] => string(15) "Bill Gates" 
    ["Sex"] => string(1) "M" 
    ["Age"] => int(26) 
    ["Birthday"] => string(10) "1985-08-13" 
    ["Friends"] => array(2) 
    { 
        [0] => object(stdClass)#2 (7) 
        { 
            ["Mongo"] => NULL 
            ["Facebook"] => int(123456)
            ["Twitter"] => NULL 
            ["Foursquare"] => NULL 
            ["Google"] => NULL 
            ["Name"] => string(10) "John Smith" 
            ["Relationship"] => string(4) "Open" 
        } 
        [1] => object(stdClass)#3 (7) 
        { 
            ["Mongo"] => NULL 
            ["Facebook"] => int(1234567) 
            ["Twitter"] => NULL 
            ["Foursquare"] => NULL 
            ["Google"] => NULL 
            ["Name"] => string(15) "Martina McBride" 
            ["Relationship"] => string(4) "Open" 
        } 
    } 
}

My questions is, why can’t I access the info after I do a json_decode() like so:

$thing['Key']

Why is it turning it decoding into an Object instead of an array?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Answer 1

PHP function json_decode() returns objects by default: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.json-decode.php

If you want to work with arrays, add the boolean “true” as the optional second parameter in the function like so:

$user = json_decode($rawData, true);

This will return arrays into variable $user

If you want to continue loading objects, instead of using $user['Mongo'] you can use $user->Mongo

Hope this helps and good luck!