Parse json with PHP. Getting Undefined property: stdClass errors - php

Question

I am having some issues parsing a json file from Jenkins using PHP
{
"actions" : [
{
"causes" : [
{
"shortDescription" : "Started by an SCM change"
}
]
},
{
},
{
},
{
"buildsByBranchName" : {
"origin/release_5.6.0" : {
"buildNumber" : 242,
"buildResult" : null,
"marked" : {
"SHA1" : "fde4cfd86b8511d328037b9e9c55876007bb6e67",
"branch" : [
{
"SHA1" : "fde4cfd86b8511d328037b9e9c55876007bb6e67",
"name" : "origin/release_5.6.0"
}
]
},
"revision" : {
"SHA1" : "fde4cfd86b8511d328037b9e9c55876007bb6e67",
"branch" : [
{
"SHA1" : "fde4cfd86b8511d328037b9e9c55876007bb6e67",
"name" : "origin/release_5.6.0"
}
]
}
},
"origin/release_5.7.0" : {
"buildNumber" : 315,
"buildResult" : null,
"marked" : {
"SHA1" : "ae2cbf69a25e0632e0f1d3eeb27a907b154efce0",
"branch" : [
{
"SHA1" : "ae2cbf69a25e0632e0f1d3eeb27a907b154efce0",
"name" : "origin/release_5.7.0"
}
]
},
"revision" : {
"SHA1" : "ae2cbf69a25e0632e0f1d3eeb27a907b154efce0",
"branch" : [
{
"SHA1" : "ae2cbf69a25e0632e0f1d3eeb27a907b154efce0",
"name" : "origin/release_5.7.0"
}
]
}
},
I have tried doing the following
//Read in JSON object
$json_file2 = file_get_contents('url.com/json');
//Decode JSON file
$test = json_decode($json_file2); //object
//print_r($json_file2);
echo $test->causes;
I am also trying to access the different sections in "buildsByBranchName". I have tried many different variations of the code above, but I keep getting "Undefined property: stdClass" errors.

Answer 1

You are not accessing that value properly. causes resides under actions which is an array. Your code also won't work because causes is an array.
// This is an array so you can't use echo here.
$causes = $test->actions[0]->causes;
// echo out the shortDescription
echo $causes[0]->shortDescription;
or
echo $test->actions[0]->causes[0]->shortDescription;