How do you use a JSON API in PHP on Wordpress? - php

Question

Here my url address for https://goalserve.com/getfeed/mytoken/topscorers/1204?json=1
How can I get the "player" data, I want to use make "top scorers standing widget" on my PHP Wordpress site.
{
"?xml":{
"#version":"1.0",
"#encoding":"utf-8"
},
"topscorers":{
"#sport":"soccer",
"tournament":{
"#name":"Premier League",
"#stage_id":"12041081",
"#gid":"1204",
"#is_current":"True",
"#id":"1204",
"player":[
{
"#pos":"1",
"#name":"Mohamed Salah",
"#team":"Liverpool",
"#team_id":"9249",
"#goals":"15",
"#penalty_goals":"2",
"#id":"138653"
},
{
"#pos":"2",
"#name":"Diogo Jota",
"#team":"Liverpool",
"#team_id":"9249",
"#goals":"10",
"#penalty_goals":"0",
"#id":"374031"
},
{
"#pos":"3",
"#name":"J. Vardy",
"#team":"Leicester City",
"#team_id":"9240",
"#goals":"9",
"#penalty_goals":"0",
"#id":"159732"
}
]
}
}
}

Answer 1

Answer
https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.json-decode.php
To do this you must first decode the json string into a php object. Then you must drill down to the proper data that you want. You can do this with the -> operator like so:
$players = json_decode($raw_string)->{'topscorers'}->{'tournament'}->{'player'};
Note that you should save the result of the decoded json string if you plan on reusing the data. Don't decode it more than once.
After you have the players, you can then iterate over the data and do what you want with it. Here is a minimal example with your data so you can see it all working together.
Example
Dataset
<?php
$raw_string = '
{
"?xml":{
"#version":"1.0",
"#encoding":"utf-8"
},
"topscorers":{
"#sport":"soccer",
"tournament":{
"#name":"Premier League",
"#stage_id":"12041081",
"#gid":"1204",
"#is_current":"True",
"#id":"1204",
"player":[
{
"#pos":"1",
"#name":"Mohamed Salah",
"#team":"Liverpool",
"#team_id":"9249",
"#goals":"15",
"#penalty_goals":"2",
"#id":"138653"
},
{
"#pos":"2",
"#name":"Diogo Jota",
"#team":"Liverpool",
"#team_id":"9249",
"#goals":"10",
"#penalty_goals":"0",
"#id":"374031"
},
{
"#pos":"3",
"#name":"J. Vardy",
"#team":"Leicester City",
"#team_id":"9240",
"#goals":"9",
"#penalty_goals":"0",
"#id":"159732"
}
]
}
}
}';
?>
Processing
<?php
$php_object = json_decode($raw_string);
$players = $php_object->{'topscorers'}->{'tournament'}->{'player'};
$html = '';
$html .= '<table>';
$html .= '<tr>';
$html .= '<td>Pos</td>';
$html .= '<td>Player</td>';
$html .= '<td>Team</td>';
$html .= '<td>Goals</td>';
$html .= '</tr>';
foreach ($players as $p) {
$html .= '<tr>';
$html .= '<td>' . $p->{'#pos'} . '</td>';
$html .= '<td>' . $p->{'#name'} . '</td>';
$html .= '<td>' . $p->{'#team'} . '</td>';
$html .= '<td>' . $p->{'#goals'} . '</td>';
$html .= '</tr>';
}
$html .= '</table>';
echo($html);
?>
Output
<table><tr><td>Pos</td><td>Player</td><td>Team</td><td>Goals</td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>Mohamed Salah</td><td>Liverpool</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>Diogo Jota</td><td>Liverpool</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>J. Vardy</td><td>Leicester City</td><td>9</td></tr></table>
Pos
Player
Team
Goals
1
Mohamed Salah
Liverpool
15
2
Diogo Jota
Liverpool
10
3
J. Vardy
Leicester City
9