Placing a json array inside the first array? - php

Question

How would I make the $query_ppimage results a sub array from the first users query? At the moment, the output is outputting a user, then a profile image, under the user, rather than inside the users array. Therefore they aren't linked.
How would I do such a thing?
Here is my code:
$query_user = "SELECT *,'user' AS type FROM users WHERE username LIKE '".$query."' OR firstname LIKE '".$query."' OR lastname LIKE '".$query."'";
$quser = $conn->query($query_user);
$rows = array();
while($user = mysqli_fetch_assoc($quser)) {
$query_ppimage = "SELECT id, post_id, relation, userID, file_format FROM media WHERE userID = '".$user['id']."' AND relation = 'profile_picture' UNION ALL SELECT -1 id, '55529055162cf' post_id, 'profile_picture' relation, '0' userID, 'jpg' file_format ORDER BY id DESC";
$qppimg = $conn->query($query_ppimage);
while($ppimg = mysqli_fetch_assoc($qppimg)) {
$rows[] = $ppimg;
$rows[] = $user;
}
}
Here is how the array is returned:
[
{
"id": "117",
"post_id": "1",
"relation": "profile_picture",
"userID": "3",
"file_format": "jpg"
},
{
"id": "3",
"email": "casper#socialnetwk.com",
"type": "user"
},
]
How it should look, or something similar. I don't think I named the sub array correctly, but it needs a name ppimage
[
{
"id": "3",
"email": "casper#socialnetwk.com",
"type": "user"
ppimage: {
"id": "117",
"post_id": "1",
"relation": "profile_picture",
"userID": "3",
"file_format": "jpg"
}
},
]

Answer 1

You are adding to $rows twice and appending two separate elements. Try building your array element first and then adding it into the $rows array. Something like this:
$newrow = $user;
$newrow['ppimage'] = $ppimg;
$rows[] = $newrow;

Answer 2

Using JOIN, you could limit this to one single query. Having a query inside a loop is never a good idea, and you should avoid it if you can. Furthermore, you should use prepared statements in order to protect against SQL injection.
The code below uses a JOIN, so that you just get one query - and structures the array as shown in the example. This is hard-coded, as its easier to control what goes where, since we now use a JOIN, the data is all fetched at once (and not in separate variables).
$row = array();
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT m.id, m.post_id, m.relation, m.file_format, u.id, u.email, 'user' as type
FROM media m
JOIN users u ON u.id=m.userID
WHERE m.relation = 'profile_picture'
AND (username LIKE ?
OR firstname LIKE ?
OR lastname LIKE ?)
ORDER BY m.id DESC");
$stmt->bind_param("sss", $query, $query, $query);
$stmt->execute();
$stmt->bind_result($mediaID, $postID, $relation, $file_format, $userID, $user_email, $type);
while ($stmt->fetch()) { // If you just expect one row, use LIMIT in the query, and remove the loop here
$row[] = array('id' => $userID,
'email' => $user_email,
'type' => $type,
'ppimage' => array('id' => $mediaID,
'post_id' => $postID,
'relation' => $relation,
'userID' => $userID,
'file_format' => $file_format)
);
}
$stmt->close();
How can I prevent SQL injection in PHP?
MySQL JOIN