Get specific values from CURL JSON response php array - php

Question

Trying to echo a couple of values from the CURL JSON response so i can put them in to a foreach loop but i can only get single indexed values to work.
$request = curl_init($api); // initiate curl object
curl_setopt($request, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0); // set to 0 to eliminate header info from response
curl_setopt($request, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); // Returns response data instead of TRUE(1)
//curl_setopt($request, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE); // uncomment if you get no gateway response and are using HTTPS
curl_setopt($request, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
curl_setopt($request, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
"Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
));
$response = (string)curl_exec($request); // execute curl fetch and store results in $response
curl_close($request); // close curl object
$result = json_decode($response, true); // true turns it into an array
echo 'First Name: ' . $result['first_name'] . '<br />'; // why doesnt this work
echo 'Last Name: ' . $result[0]['last_name'] . '<br />'; // yet i can return the first value
Example Array output
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[id] => 34761
[first_name] => A
[last_name] => Bailes
[clinic] =>
[phone] => 7409923279
[fax] => 7409926740
[address1] => 507 Mulberry Heights Rd
[address2] =>
[city] => Pomeroy
[subdivision] => OH
[country_code] =>
[postal_code] => 45769-9573
[timezone] => Array
(
[timezone_type] => 3
[timezone] => America/New_York
)
[state] => OH
)
)
I have json decode set to true for array output
$result = json_decode($response, true); // true turns it into an array
but when i try to echo the 'first_name' values it just returns empty.
echo 'First Name: ' . $result['first_name'] . '<br />'; // why doesnt this work
Yet i can return an indexed value
echo 'First Name: ' . $result[0]['first_name'] . '<br />';
What am i doing wrong here?

Answer 1

Your result array is nested 2 deep. $result is an array of arrays. So:
$result[0]['first_name']
or
foreach ($result as $r) {
echo $r['first_name'];
}

Answer 2

Response depend on server answer your request, the following work perfect to extract access token for example, you can try the following steps to test what you have and extract what you need too
After
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
I start to show what I get by
Test:
print_r ($response);
Then go to extract (where server response ) header and body to use what available in each of them
list($header, $body) = explode("\r\n\r\n", $response, 2);
Test:
echo $header;
echo $body;
then I’m extract item in $body to use in my code using stdClass
$bodyObject = json_decode($body);
Test:
print_r($bodyObject);
Test:
echo $bodyObject->access_token;