php class return array - php

Question

I tried to get followers from MySQL usingy this class
class get_followers {
public $followers_arr = array();
public function __construct($user_id) {
$query = "select * from followsystem where following ='$user_id'";
$q = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
$count = mysql_num_rows($q);
if ($count > 0) {
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($q)) {
array_push($this->followers_arr, $row['userid']);
}
}
return $this->followers_arr;
}
}
Then I initialize this class
$fol = new get_followers($userid);
$fol_arr = json_encode($fol);
echo $fol_arr;
Then I get
{"followers_arr":["1234","456"]}
but what i want want just to get this
["1234","456"]
How is that works?

Answer 1

I don't think you understand how constructors work. You can't return a value from a constructor because it's just used to instantiate the object. When you're doing $fol_arr = json_encode($fol); you're actually encoding the entire object, not it's return value.
If you really want to use a class to do this, you should add a method to the class and use that, like this:
class Followers {
public $followers_arr = array();
public $user_id = null;
public function __construct($user_id) {
$this->user_id = $user_id;
}
public function get()
{
$query = "select * from followsystem where following ='{$this->user_id}'";
$q = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
$count = mysql_num_rows($q);
if ($count > 0) {
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($q)) {
array_push($this->followers_arr, $row['userid']);
}
}
return $this->followers_arr;
}
}
And use it like this:
$fol = new Followers($userid);
$fol_arr = json_encode($fol->get());
echo $fol_arr;

Answer 2

The solution to your problem is to do $fol_arr = json_encode($fol->followers_arr);
Nonetheless, making a class in this case is completely obsolete, since you only make it as a wrapper for a single function you want to execute (called get_followers) Instead of making a class, you could simply make the following:
function get_followers($user_id) {
$followers_arr = [];
$query = "select * from followsystem where following ='$user_id'";
$q = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
$count = mysql_num_rows($q);
if ($count > 0) {
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($q)) {
array_push($followers_arr, $row['userid']);
}
}
return $followers_arr;
}
$fol = get_followers($userid);
$fol_arr = json_encode($fol);
echo $fol_arr;
There is no need to put it in a class unless the class serves the purpose of combining a few functions and variables to create a behaviour.