echo results from an google safe browsing api array - php

Question

I know this is a basic question, but I cannot figure out how to actually do this. I have read countless tutorials about it but they seemingly do not work.
var_dump($google_check);
returns the following:
string(488) "{
"matches": [
{
"threatType": "MALWARE",
"platformType": "LINUX",
"threat": {
"url": "http://malware.testing.google.test/testing/malware/"
},
"cacheDuration": "300s",
"threatEntryType": "URL"
},
{
"threatType": "MALWARE",
"platformType": "LINUX",
"threat": {
"url": "http://malware.testing.google.test/testing/malware/"
},
"cacheDuration": "300s",
"threatEntryType": "URL"
}
]
}
"
I want to echo results from the array, so something like
echo $google_check[0][matches][threat];
echo $google_check[1][matches][threat];
Problem is this returns illegal offset on matches and threat, and only echo's a single character {
What am I doing wrong? How do I echo the results from this array without dumping the entire array?

Answer 1

The response you recieved is in json so you'll need to first json_decode the response.
$decoded = json_decode($google_check, true);
Then you can access it like an array
echo $decoded['matches'][0]['threat'];
echo $decoded['matches'][1]['threat'];
if you want the url value you'll need to do it like this.
echo $decoded['matches'][0]['threat']['url'];
echo $decoded['matches'][1]['threat']['url'];
please also note, when looking at array keys that aren't numerical you'll need to wrap in quotes (e.g. $decoded['matches'] instead of $decoded[matches]).
Here's a quick explanation on json
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/json/json_php_example.htm