javascript / jquery Accessing JSON array by both name and index - php

Question

I am very much hoping you can help me with this as I've spent all too much time on this. First, my JSON formatting is unfortunately not very mutable and I have moved it to a number of different formats to support both some jquery and a php-based search. Each time I move it, the search will work and the rest of the site will break or vice-versa.
Is it possible to access a JSON array by both name and index number? Here is my JSON (stored in PHP file and being retrieved & converted successfully to valid JSON):
<?php
$contents = array(
'Song Name #1 by Artist Name #1 (maininfo)' => array(
'contentid' => '1',
'aname' => 'Artist Name',
'sname' => 'Song Name',
'main' => 'core content #1',
'maininfo' => 'url')
),
'Song Name #2 by Artist Name #2 (maininfo)' => array(
'contentid' => '2',
'aname' => 'Artist Name',
'sname' => 'Song Name',
'main' => 'core content #2',
'maininfo' => 'url')
);
?>
My search works when something in the array title is matched on, otherwise it returns no matches so I must leave the array title as-is.
Another part of my project uses jquery and has the following:
parse(jsonobj[0][1]['sname']) //successfully already returning 'Song Name'
The above will ONLY work when the array title is not provided (e.g. 'Song Name #1 by Artist Name #1 (maininfo)' => array( becomes simply array(.
For those curious, file is being converted to JSON using:
var jsonobj;
$.ajax({
url: 'getjson.php',
dataType: "json",
success: function (doc) {
jsonobj = doc;
}
});
On the PHP side, when getjson.php is called the JSON array (above) is loaded in and converted to valid JSON using:
$final = array($final_contents);
header('Content-type: application/json');
echo json_encode($final);
Note: $final_contents is just $contents with an additional header added. See Searching JSON array for values and accessing surrounding keys/values; output as JSON for the PHP I have running specifically.
Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

JavaScript does not support arrays with named indexes. You should encode it as a JSON object instead.
var $contents = {
"Song Name #1 by Artist Name #1 (maininfo)": {
"contentid": 1,
"aname": "Artist Name",
"sname": "Song Name",
"main": "core content #1",
"maininfo": "url"
},{
"Song Name #2 by Artist Name #2 (maininfo)": {
"contentid": 2,
"aname": "Artist Name",
"sname": "Song Name",
"main": "core content #2",
"maininfo": "url"
}
};
Although it would probably be better to arrange it this way (here's a fiddle to demonstrate:
var songs = [
{
"contentid": 1,
"artist": "Artist Name",
"title": "Song Title 1",
"main": "core content #1",
"maininfo": "url"
},
{
"contentid": 2,
"artist": "Artist Name",
"title": "Song Title 2",
"main": "core content #2",
"maininfo": "url"
}
];
Then you can search through your songs list by id, or iterate through to filter on specific field values. For instance to find all songs whose titles start with "Song Title":
var findAllSongs = function(prop, value){
var result = new Array();
for (var i = 0; i < songs.length; i++) {
var song = songs[i];
if (song[prop] && (song[prop] === value || song[prop].search(value) >= 0)){
result.push(song);
}
}
return result;
};
var song = findAllSongs("title","Song Title 2")[0];
alert(song.contentid);
// Outputs "2"
The php equivalent of my json above is:
$songs = array(
array(
"contentid" => 1,
"artist" => "Artist Name",
"title" => "Song Title 1",
"main" => "core content #1",
"maininfo" => "url",
),
array(
"contentid" => 2,
"artist" => "Artist Name",
"title" => "Song Title 2",
"main" => "core content #2",
"maininfo" => "url",
)
);
If you're using PHP 5.4 or higher, you can use the short syntax:
$songs = [
[
"contentid" => 1,
"artist" => "Artist Name",
"title" => "Song Title 1",
"main" => "core content #1",
"maininfo" => "url",
],[
"contentid" => 2,
"artist" => "Artist Name",
"title" => "Song Title 2",
"main" => "core content #2",
"maininfo" => "url",
]
];
Then you can turn it into JSON by using your current method:
json_encode($songs);

Answer 2

You are having array. convert it to json using following code (json_encode) and echo so that jquery can receive it:
$jsonVar = json_encode($contents);
echo $jsonVar;
Update:
Code to call json using ajax is:
$.ajax({
dataType: "json",
url: url,
data: data,
success: success
});
Alternatively you can use shorthand for it:
$.getJSON( "ajax/test.json", function( data ) {
var items = [];
$.each( data, function( key, val ) {
items.push( "<li id='" + key + "'>" + val + "</li>" );
});
$( "<ul/>", {
"class": "my-new-list",
html: items.join( "" )
}).appendTo( "body" );
});
Of course the file being sent should be in json format, that is:
{
"one": "Singular sensation",
"two": "Beady little eyes",
"three": "Little birds pitch by my doorstep"
}
for that you need to convert the array into json.