Handling data in a PHP JSON Object
PhpJsonPhp Problem Overview
Trends data from Twitter Search API in JSON.
Grabbing the file using:
$jsonurl = "http://search.twitter.com/trends.json";
$json = file_get_contents($jsonurl,0,null,null);
$json_output = json_decode($json);
How do I work with data from this object. As an array? Only really need to extract data from the [name] values.
JSON object contains:
stdClass Object
(
[trends] => Array
(
[0] => stdClass Object
(
[name] => Vote
[url] => http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Vote
)
[1] => stdClass Object
(
[name] => Halloween
[url] => http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Halloween
)
[2] => stdClass Object
(
[name] => Starbucks
[url] => http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Starbucks
)
[3] => stdClass Object
(
[name] => #flylady
[url] => http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23flylady
)
[4] => stdClass Object
(
[name] => #votereport
[url] => http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23votereport
)
[5] => stdClass Object
(
[name] => Election Day
[url] => http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%22Election+Day%22
)
[6] => stdClass Object
(
[name] => #PubCon
[url] => http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23PubCon
)
[7] => stdClass Object
(
[name] => #defrag08
[url] => http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23defrag08
)
[8] => stdClass Object
(
[name] => Melbourne Cup
[url] => http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%22Melbourne+Cup%22
)
[9] => stdClass Object
(
[name] => Cheney
[url] => http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Cheney
)
)
[as_of] => Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:49:36 +0000
)
Php Solutions
Solution 1 - Php
You mean something like this?
<?php
$jsonurl = "http://search.twitter.com/trends.json";
$json = file_get_contents($jsonurl,0,null,null);
$json_output = json_decode($json);
foreach ( $json_output->trends as $trend )
{
echo "{$trend->name}\n";
}
Solution 2 - Php
If you use json_decode($string, true), you will get no objects, but everything as an associative or number indexed array. Way easier to handle, as the stdObject provided by PHP is nothing but a dumb container with public properties, which cannot be extended with your own functionality.
$array = json_decode($string, true);
echo $array['trends'][0]['name'];
Solution 3 - Php
Just use it like it was an object you defined. i.e.
$trends = $json_output->trends;