Illegal String offset with multi-level json decode - php

Question

I am having some issues trying to pull some data from a multi-level json url. I can get everything else except for a certain nested section.
{
"name": "NewNationsPnW",
"count": 10,
"frequency": "Every 15 mins",
"version": 31,
"newdata": false,
"lastrunstatus": "success",
"thisversionstatus": "success",
"nextrun": "Wed Jan 13 2016 22:57:30 GMT+0000 (UTC)",
"thisversionrun": "Wed Jan 13 2016 22:42:30 GMT+0000 (UTC)",
"results": {
"collection1": [
{
"Nation": {
"href": "https:\/\/politicsandwar.com\/nation\/id=30953",
"text": "Renegade States"
},
"Founded": "01\/13\/2016",
"Alliance": "None",
"Continent": "North America",
"property7": "",
"index": 1,
"url": "https:\/\/politicsandwar.com\/nations\/"
}
]
}
}
The following code works to display that nested area but I would like to get it to individual outputs.
$request = "https://www.kimonolabs.com/api/4p7k02r0?apikey=qAnUSnSVi8B17hie7xbPh9ijikNLzBzk";
$response = file_get_contents($request);
$json = json_decode($response, true);
//echo '<pre>'; print_r($results);
foreach($json['results']['collection1'] as $stat) {
foreach($stat['Nation'] as $stat1) {
echo $stat1;
}
if($stat['Alliance'] == 'None') {
echo $stat['Founded'] . " - " . $stat['Alliance'] . " - " . $stat['Continent'] . "<br />";
}
}
I have tried the following
foreach($json['results']['collection1'] as $stat) {
foreach($stat['Nation'] as $stat1) {
echo $stat1['text'];
echo $stat1['href'];
}
if($stat['Alliance'] == 'None') {
echo $stat['Founded'] . " - " . $stat['Alliance'] . " - " . $stat['Continent'] . "<br />";
}
}
but I get
Illegal string offset 'text' in parse.php on line 10
Illegal string offset 'href' in parse.php on line 11
As well as it only displays
hhRR01/13/2016 - None - North America
hhFFhhDD01/13/2016 - None - Asia
I am sure I am doing something that is simple to fix but being a rookie, I am messing it all up.

Answer 1

Your nested loop is unnecessary, and the cause of your errors:
foreach($json['results']['collection1'] as $stat) {
echo $stat['nation']['text'];
echo $stat['nation']['href'];
}

Answer 2

There is no need to convert a perfectly good JSON object data structure to an array.
<?php
$request = "https://www.kimonolabs.com/api/4p7k02r0?apikey=qAnUSnSVi8B17hie7xbPh9ijikNLzBzk";
$response = file_get_contents($request);
$j = json_decode($response );
foreach ($j->results->collection1 as $collection1 ) {
echo $collection1->Nation->href;
echo $collection1->Nation->text;
if($collection1->Alliance == 'None') {
echo sprintf("%s - %s - %s<br />",
$collection1->Founded,
$collection1->Alliance,
$collection1->Continent
);
}
}