PHP Best Way to Create Variable from API Content - php

Question

I am very beginner in programmer and I am learning.
I am sorry if my question is too bad.
I want to create variable in php from api content, for example:
This contents is from this URL: http://example.com/api
{"name":"John","age":"20","genre":"male","language":[{"id":"22","name":"english"},{"id":"23","name":"french"}]}
<?php
$content = file_get_contents("http://example.com/api");
$content = str_replace('"', "", $content);
$content = str_replace(":", "=", $content);
$content = str_replace(",", "&", $content);
parse_str($content);
echo $name; //John
echo $age; //20
echo $genre; //male
echo $language //[{id <======== here is my problem
?>
My problem is when I am getting an array like "language", how to fix it?
Thanks for help.

Answer 1

U can use the http://www.php.net/json_decode in two ways :
This is object oriented :
$str = '{"name":"John","age":"20","genre":"male","language":[{"id":"22","name":"english"},{"id":"23","name":"french"}]}';
$json = json_decode($str);
echo 'name: ' . $json->{'name'} .'<br>';
echo 'age: ' . $json->{'age'} .'<br>';
echo 'genre: ' . $json->{'genre'} . '<br>';
foreach($json->{'language'} as $data){
echo 'id: ' . $data->{'id'} . '<br>';
echo 'name: ' . $data->{'name'} . '<br>';
}
As an associative array :
$json = json_decode($str, true);
echo 'name: ' . $json['name'] .'<br>';
echo 'age: ' . $json['age'] .'<br>';
echo 'genre: ' . $json['genre'] . '<br>';
foreach($json['language'] as $data){
echo 'id: ' . $data['id'] . '<br>';
echo 'name: ' . $data['name'] . '<br>';
}

Answer 2

json_decode() will help you to convert the string data to something more accessible:
<?php
// Instead of your fetched data we use static example data in this script
//$content = file_get_contents("http://example.com/api");
$content = '{"name":"John","age":"20","genre":"male","language":[{"id":"22","name":"english"},{"id":"23","name":"french"}]}';
// Convert json data to object
$data = json_decode($content);
// access object properties by using "->" operator
echo $data->name;
echo $data->age;
echo $data->genre;
// language is an array of objects, so let's look at each language object...
foreach($data->language as $lang) {
// ... and extract data using "->" again
echo $lang->id;
echo $lang->name;
}
A live example of this code can be found at http://sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/6df679c3faa8fff43308a34fb80b2eeb0ccfe47c

Answer 3

As pointed out by #fusionK, the response from the api request is a json string so convert to an object ( or array if preferred ) using json_decode ( json_decode( $data,true ) for an array )
Once it is decoded it is straightforward to access the properties of the object.
<?php
/* capture and decode response from api - creates an object */
$content = json_decode( file_get_contents("http://example.com/api") );
/* using object notation to access properties */
echo $content->name.' '.$content->age.' '.$content->genre;
/* for the language which is an array of objects */
$lang=$content->language;
foreach( $lang as $language ){
$obj=(object)$language;
echo $obj->id.' '.$obj->name;
}
?>