How to output different levels of an array - php

Question

As a newbie, does anyone have any good tutorials to help me understand different levels of an array? What I'm trying to learn is how to echo different levels, e.g. here is the output array:
Array
(
[meta] =>
Array
(
[total_record_count] => 1
[total_pages] => 1
[current_page] => 1
[per_page] => 1
)
[companies] =>
Array
(
[0] =>
Array
(
[id] => 291869
[url] => https://api.mattermark.com/companies/291869
[company_name] => gohenry.co.uk
[domain] => gohenry.co.uk
)
)
[total_companies] => 1
[page] => 1
[per_page] => 1
)
And here is the code to parse the array:
foreach($jsonObj as $item)
{
echo $item['total_companies'];
}
I'm really struggling to find the structure and how to output each items, e.g. tried things like:
echo $item[0]['total_companies'];
echo $item['companies'][0]['id'];
Any help or pointers would be greatly received.

Answer 1

Well, Lets start, You have a multi-dimensional array. For a multi-dimensional array you need to use looping e.g: for, while, foreach. For your purpose it is foreach.
Start with the array dimension, Array can be multi-dimension, Like you have multi-dimension. If you have an array like below, then it is single dimension.
array(
key => value,
key2 => value2,
key3 => value3,
...
)
Now, How can you know what is a multi-dimension array, If you array has another array as child then it is called multi-dimensional array, like below.
$array = array(
"foo" => "bar",
42 => 24,
"multi" => array(
"dimensional" => array(
"array" => "foo"
)
)
);
Its time to work with your array. Suppose you want to access the value of company_name, what should you do?? Let your array name is $arr.
First you need to use a foreach loop like:
foreach($arr as $key => $val)
The keys are (meta, companies, total_companies...), they are in the first dimension. Now check if the key is company_name or not, if it matches than you got it. Or else you need to make another loop if the $val is an array, You can check it using is_array.
By the same processing at the last element your loop executes and find your value.

Answer 2

Learning
Always a good idea to start with the docs:
arrays: http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php
foreach: http://php.net/manual/en/control-structures.foreach.php
As for tutorials, try the interactive tutorial over at codecademy: https://www.codecademy.com/learn/php
Unit 4 has a tutorial on arrays
Unit 11 has a lesson on advanced arrays.
Your code
As for your code, look at the following which I will show you your array structure and how to access each element. Perhaps that will make things clearer for you.
So lets say your array is named $myArray, see how to access each part via the comments. Keep in mind this is not php code, I'm just showing you how to access the array's different elements.
$myArray = Array
(
// $myArray['meta']
[meta] => Array (
// $myArray['meta']['total_record_count']
[total_record_count] => 1
// $myArray['meta']['total_pages']
[total_pages] => 1
// $myArray['meta']['current_page']
[current_page] => 1
// $myArray['meta']['per_page']
[per_page] => 1
)
// $myArray['companies']
[companies] => Array (
// $myArray['companies'][0]
[0] => Array (
// $myArray['companies'][0]['id']
[id] => 291869
// $myArray['companies'][0]['url']
[url] => https://api.mattermark.com/companies/291869
// $myArray['companies'][0]['company_name']
[company_name] => gohenry.co.uk
// $myArray['companies'][0]['domain']
[domain] => gohenry.co.uk
)
)
// $myArray['total_companies']
[total_companies] => 1
// $myArray['page']
[page] => 1
// $myArray['per_page']
[per_page] => 1
)
As for your for each loop
foreach($jsonObj as $item)
{
echo $item['total_companies'];
}
What the foreach loop is doing is looping through each first level of the array $jsonObj, so that would include:
meta
companies
total_companies
page
per_page
Then within the curly braces {} of the foreach loop you can refer to each level by the variable $item.
So depending on what you want to achieve you need to perhaps change your code, what is it you're trying to do as it's not really clear to me.
As for the code within the loop:
echo $item['total_companies'];
It won't work because you're trying to access an array with the index of total_companies within the first level of the $jsonObj array which doesn't exist. For it to work your array would have to look like this:
$jsonObj = array (
'0' => array ( // this is what is reference to as $item
'total_companies' => 'some value'
)
)
What you want to do is this:
foreach($jsonObj as $item)
{
echo $jsonObj['total_companies'];
}
As for your final snippet of code:
echo $item[0]['total_companies'];
Answered this above. Access it like $jsonObj['total_companies'];
echo $item['companies'][0]['id'];
If you want to loop through the companies try this:
foreach($jsonObj['companies'] as $item)
{
// now item will represent each iterable element in $jsonObj['companies]
// so we could do this:
echo $item['id'];
}
I hope that all helps! If you don't understand please make a comment and I'll update my answer.

Answer 3

Please take a look in to here and here
Information about php arrays

Answer 4

Try recursive array printing using this function:
function recursive($array){
foreach($array as $key => $value){
//If $value is an array.
if(is_array($value)){
//We need to loop through it.
recursive($value);
} else{
//It is not an array, so print it out.
echo $value, '<br>';
}
}
}

Answer 5

if you know how deep your array structure you can perform nested foreach loop and before every loop you have to check is_array($array_variable), like :
foreach($parent as $son)
{
if(is_array($son))
{
foreach($son as $grandson)
{
if(is_array($son))
{
foreach($grandson as $grandgrandson)
{
.....
......
.......
}
else
echo $grandson;
}
else
echo $parent;
}
else
echo $son;
}
hope it will help you to understand