PHP efficiently accessing values in a JSON array on different levels - php

Question

Working on a personal project that will pull results from an API with full details of each pokemon.
So far I got the contents of the URL and returned the results into a JSON array format.
At the moment I am stuck on trying to retrieve results for[stats] inside from the array in an efficient manner.
private function getGenOnePokemon()
{
// the url of the api
$url = $this->baseUrl;
//get the contents of $url var and decode it into a json array
$json = file_get_contents($url , true);
$pokemon = json_decode($json, true, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);
// array output of pokemon
echo '<pre> ';
print_r($pokemon);
echo'</pre>';
//echo out value as speed
foreach($pokemon['results'][0] as $happy)
{
echo $happy['name'] . '<br />';
}
// echo base_stat value for speed with value of 90
echo $pokemon['stats'][0]['base_stat'];
}
However I do not seem to get anywhere much printing values/keys as I need to add something else to have full access to the values?
Would prefer not to directly access results, like I am doing with base_stat as plan on using this logic to pass into HTML View layer later.
Example of print_r dump (not full dump as really long) Full example: https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/pokemon/pikachu
Array
(
[forms] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[url] => https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/pokemon-form/25/
[name] => pikachu
)
)
[abilities] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[slot] => 3
[is_hidden] => 1
[ability] => Array
(
[url] => https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/ability/31/
[name] => lightning-rod
)
)
[1] => Array
(
[slot] => 1
[is_hidden] =>
[ability] => Array
(
[url] => https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/ability/9/
[name] => static
)
)
)
[stats] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[stat] => Array
(
[url] => https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/stat/6/
[name] => speed
)
[effort] => 2
[base_stat] => 90
)
[1] => Array
(
[stat] => Array
(
[url] => https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/stat/5/
[name] => special-defense
)
[effort] => 0
[base_stat] => 50
)
[2] => Array
(
[stat] => Array
(
[url] => https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/stat/4/
[name] => special-attack
)
[effort] => 0
[base_stat] => 50
)
[3] => Array
(
[stat] => Array
(
[url] => https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/stat/3/
[name] => defense
)
[effort] => 0
[base_stat] => 40
)
[4] => Array
(
[stat] => Array
(
[url] => https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/stat/2/
[name] => attack
)
[effort] => 0
[base_stat] => 55
)
[5] => Array
(
[stat] => Array
(
[url] => https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/stat/1/
[name] => hp
)
[effort] => 0
[base_stat] => 35
)
)
Any advice on how to access the data using foreach or other tips greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

PHP has a specific function designed to target columnar data from arrays. It is called array_column()
If you want to isolate all of the name elements inside the forms subarray, use this:
$names=array_column($pokemon['forms'],'name');
If you want to isolate all of the base_stat elements inside of the stats subarray, use this:
$base_stats=array_column($pokemon['stats'],'base_stat');
Now you will have $names and $base_stats which are single-dimensional arrays by which you can perform additional processes or return from the function. Clean, intuitive, and simple.

Answer 2

Your $pokemon array doesn't contain a results field. There's only an forms field. So you should iterate over forms to print the names of the forms.
foreach($pokemon['forms'] as $happy) {
echo $happy['name'] . '<br />';
}
You could do the same thing with the stats
foreach($pokemon['stats'] as $stat) {
$base_stat = $stat['base_stat'];
// ...
}