How to format the JSON output to the desired format - php

Question

I am trying to create a custom controller for the WordPress JSON API plugin and so far everything is working except the JSON Data I have is not in the correct format.
This is my current JSON output:
{
"status": "ok",
"all_tags": {
"tag-1": {
"term_name": "Tag 1",
"category_details": {
"0": {
"category_ID": 8,
"category_name": "category 1",
"category_count": 2
},
"2": {
"category_ID": 13,
"category_name": "category 2",
"category_count": 1
}
}
},
"tag-2": {
"term_name": "Tag 2",
"category_details": [
{
"category_ID": 8,
"category_name": "category 1",
"category_count": 2
}
]
}
}
}
However, in order to parse the data I must have the json data in a specific format. The correct format should be like this:
{
"status": "ok",
"all_tags": [
{
"id": 1,
"term_name": "Tag 1",
"category_details": [
{
"id": 2,
"category_ID": 8,
"category_name": "category 1",
"category_count": 2
},
{
"id": 3,
"category_ID": 13,
"category_name": "category 2",
"category_count": 1
}
]
},
{
"id": 2,
"term_name": "Tag 2",
"category_details": [
{
"id": 2,
"category_ID": 8,
"category_name": "category 1",
"category_count": 2
}
]
}
]
}
This is how I am creating the array for the json:
<?php
...
$cats_all = array(); // the array
if (!isset($cats_all[$custom_term->slug])) {
// create the array
$cats_all[$custom_term->slug] = array(
'term_name' => $custom_term->name,
'category_details' => array(
array(
'category_ID' => $categories[0]->term_id,
'category_name' => $categories[0]->name,
'category_count' => $mycats[0]->category_count
)
)
);
} else {
$cats_all[$custom_term->slug]['category_details'][] = array(
'category_ID' => $categories[0]->term_id,
'category_name' => $categories[0]->name,
'category_count' => $mycats[0]->category_count
);
}
...
// remove duplicates
$input = $this->super_unique( $cats_all );
// return the array for json output by the plugin
return array(
'all_tags' => $input,
);
Any help will be greatly appreciated. Also the entire controller can be viewed here.

Answer 1

There are two things you need to achieve:
The all_tags value must be a sequential array, not an associative one. This you can achieve by taking the array_values at the last statement:
return array(
'all_tags' => array_values($input)
);
The category_details values must be sequential arrays, not associative ones. This one is more tricky, as you actually do create them as sequential arrays, but the function super_unique will sometimes turn them into associative arrays, when it eliminates at least one duplicate. I suggest this fix to the function super_unique by adding two statements, around this one:
$result = array_map( 'unserialize', array_unique( array_map( 'serialize', $array ) ) );
To get this:
$is_seq = end(array_keys($array)) == count($array)-1;
$result = array_map( 'unserialize', array_unique( array_map( 'serialize', $array ) ) );
if ($is_seq) $result = array_values($result);
If you get an error on end, then you can use this for that line instead:
end($array); $is_seq = key($array) == count($array)-1;
The $is_seq variable checks that $array is sequential, and if so, calls array_values after the removal of the duplicates, which always returns a sequential array.

Answer 2

I think that the problem here is this:
"0": {
"category_ID": 8,
"category_name": "category 1",
"category_count": 2
},
"2": {
"category_ID": 13,
"category_name": "category 2",
"category_count": 1
}
if you want an array to be a json encoded array, indexes must be numeric and correlatives (0,1,2,3...)
Probably, after using your $this->super_unique( $cats_all ), or inside this function, you should call array_values on every array that has been reindexed; it reset the values of the array to 0, 1, ... etc... and when encoded, it will be an array isntead of an object.
Generally speaking, it´s a good practice to use $array = array_values($array) after using array_filter(...) to correctly reindex the array, elsewhere, you can get indexes like 0,2,7... etc...
Let me know if you need more details