handling nested json in looping - php

Question

json after json_encoded
{
"data":[
{
"name":"JIN",
"id":"100007934492797"
},
{
"name":"aris",
"id":"100008128873664"
},
{
"name":"Madm",
"id":"34234234"
}
],
"paging":{
"next":"https://graph.facebook.com/v1.0/1380314981/friends?limit=5000&offset=5000&__after_id=enc_AeyRMdHJrW0kW9vIZ41uFPXMPgE-VwRaHtQJz2JWyVc0hMl9eOG10C6JWjoCO8O2E4m24EPr28gIt9mxQR8oIQmN"
}
}
I want to store the name and ID of my json in db. But when I use for loop there's a problem with the offset, I suspect it's the last part of the json. How to remove the paging part? I tried
foreach($friends as friend){
echo friend[0]->name;
}

Answer 1

First, your original code would never work:
foreach($friends as friend){
echo friend[0]->name;
}
Those references to friend should have $ in front of them making them $friend. Then to solve your larger issue, just use a nested foreach loop:
$json = <<<EOT
{
"data": [
{
"name": "JIN",
"id": "100007934492797"
},
{
"name": "aris",
"id": "100008128873664"
},
{
"name": "Madm",
"id": "34234234"
}
],
"paging": {
"next": "https://graph.facebook.com/v1.0/1380314981/friends?limit=5000&offset=5000&__after_id=enc_AeyRMdHJrW0kW9vIZ41uFPXMPgE-VwRaHtQJz2JWyVc0hMl9eOG10C6JWjoCO8O2E4m24EPr28gIt9mxQR8oIQmN"
}
}
EOT;
$friends = json_decode($json);
foreach($friends as $friend_data){
foreach($friend_data as $friend){
echo $friend->name . '<br />';
}
}
And the output of this would be:
JIN
aris
Madm
Additionally, if working with arrays makes more sense for you, you can always set json_decode to return an array by setting the second parameter to true. Here is refactored code as an example:
$friends = json_decode($json, true);
foreach($friends as $friend_data){
foreach($friend_data as $friend_key => $friend_value){
if (isset($friend_value['name'])) {
echo $friend_value['name'] . '<br />';
}
}
}