Question

What would be the correct name for this type of array?

There are 3 main sections and 4 sub-parts consisting of “issuedTime” “text” “url” and “validToTime”, how do you start to convert this to an object? If there was only 1 main section, it would be fairly simple to do however with 3 main parts and no identification for each main section has me scratching my head as where to start.

Any advise appreciated.

[{
"issuedTime":"7:13pm Sunday 13 June 2010",
"text":"\nAmended 7:10pm.\n\nText text and more text\n",
"url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
"validToTime":"12:00am Monday 14 June 2010"
},{
"issuedTime":"8:33pm Sunday 13 June 2010",
"text":"\nText and more text.\n",
"url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
"validToTime":"12:00pm Monday 14 June 2010"
},{
"issuedTime":"10:40am Sunday 13 June 2010",
"text":"\nAnd even more text.",
"url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
"validToTime":"12:00am Tuesday 15 June 2010"
}
]

Answer 1

Here’s how to parse that json

<?php
$json = '[{
    "issuedTime":"7:13pm Sunday 13 June 2010",
    "text":"\nAmended 7:10pm.\n\nText text and more text\n",
    "url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
    "validToTime":"12:00am Monday 14 June 2010"
    },{
    "issuedTime":"8:33pm Sunday 13 June 2010",
    "text":"\nText and more text.\n",
    "url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
    "validToTime":"12:00pm Monday 14 June 2010"
    },{
    "issuedTime":"10:40am Sunday 13 June 2010",
    "text":"\nAnd even more text.",
    "url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
    "validToTime":"12:00am Tuesday 15 June 2010"
}]';
// Parse the json into a PHP array that holds multiple "stdClass Object"s
$obj = json_decode($json);  
// Iterate through each "stdClass Object" and show what it contains  
foreach($obj as $var => $value)
{
    echo "Number: $var <br/>";    
    echo "Issued: " . $obj[$var]->issuedTime . "<br/>";                    
    echo "Text: " . $obj[$var]->text . "<br/>";    
    echo "URL: " . $obj[$var]->url . "<br/>";    
    echo "Valid to: " . $obj[$var]->validToTime . "<br/>";       
    echo "<br/>";
}
?>

Once you have $obj, you can access it like in the foreach loop above, or to access, let’s say the text in the second listing you would use:

echo $obj[1]->text; // Second listing, since the first listing is $obj[0]

And HTML link w text for the same:

echo '<a href="' . $obj[1]->url . '">' . $obj[1]->text . '</a>';