How to extract the JSON data from the nested arrays in PHP? - php

Question

So I am pulling the API from Coinmarketcap.com and the new version has a really different data structure.
Also I am a newb at PHP and APIs really don't understand how to pull the nested array data out of the api call.
Here is the api data:
https://api.coinmarketcap.com/v2/ticker/1/
or
https://api.coinmarketcap.com/v2/ticker/1/?structure=array
{
"data": [
{
"id": 1,
"name": "Bitcoin",
"symbol": "BTC",
"website_slug": "bitcoin",
"rank": 1,
"circulating_supply": 17148000.0,
"total_supply": 17148000.0,
"max_supply": 21000000.0,
"quotes": {
"USD": {
"price": 6233.51,
"volume_24h": 3674820000.0,
"market_cap": 106892229480.0,
"percent_change_1h": -0.11,
"percent_change_24h": -0.46,
"percent_change_7d": -6.25
}
},
"last_updated": 1531544203
}
],
"metadata": {
"timestamp": 1531543852,
"error": null
}
}
What I decided to do is pull the object into json_dcode and then loop through it creating a new array each time until I was able to grab the array data i wanted, which in this case was $a(). This worked, but I thought there might be a more efficient way of doing this as i think the for-loops will cause performance issues. Is there a better way to do this? thank you in advance. -Dan
Here is my test code please show me a better way:
<?php
$BitcoinContents = file_get_contents("https://api.coinmarketcap.com/v2/ticker/1/?structure=array");
$BTCContents = json_decode($BitcoinContents, true);
echo " 0 <br>";
print_r($BTCContents);
echo "<br>";
foreach($BTCContents as $array){
echo "<br>--------<br>";
print_r($array);
foreach($array as $arr){
echo "<br>--------<br>";
print_r($arr);
foreach($arr as $ar){
echo "<br>--------<br>";
print_r($ar);
foreach($ar as $a){
echo "<br>--------<br>";
print_r($a);
foreach($a as $key => $val){
echo "<br>=========<br>";
echo "$key: $val | ";
}
}
}
}
}
echo "<br>=========<br>";
echo "<br>--------<br>";
print_r($a);
echo "<br>--------<br>";
echo "<br>=========<br>";
echo "<br>".$a['price']."<br>";
echo "<br>--------<br>";
echo "<br>=========<br>";
?>

Answer 1

If your are trying to access a particular array in a nested array, just do this:
$data = $BTCContents['data'][0]['quotes']['USD'];
Here I have used the index of the arrays to access a specific array which is USD.
Index of array = Name of the array which can be a word or digit.
Then you can do a foreach loop to access the item inside or you can access them directly by doing:
$price = $data['price'];