Question

I want to parse the JSON string below into an associative array, sort it by the ‘age’ field and output the sorted array as an HTML table:

<?
$json='[{"name": "jesse","age": 25},{"name": "jason","age": 29},{"name": "johnson","age": 24}]';

?>

Should I use some sort of json_decode to print the individual values and use an existing sorting function in php?

Answer 1

Yes, the only way (I know of) is to use:

$array = json_decode( $json);
$array = array_map( $array, 'objectToArray');

// Or rather:
$array = json_decode( $json, true);

// And sort
sort( $array);

Php offers many array sorting functions, just browse manual. I also borrowed objectToArray from this page.

I guess you will want to sort by age (or name), you should probably use usort:

function cmp( $a, $b){
  if( !isset( $a['age']) && !isset( $b['age'])){
    return 0;
  }

  if( !isset( $a['age'])){
    return -1;
  }

  if( !isset( $b['age'])){
    return 1;
  }

  if( $a['age'] == $b['age']){
    return 0;
  }

  return (($a['age'] > $b['age']) ? 1 : -1);
}

usort( $array, 'cmp');