Trying to parse JSON with PHP - php

Question

I'm new to php and this has really stumped me - i'm trying to parse this json in order to get the value of match_id.
{
"result": {
"status": 1,
"num_results": 1,
"total_results": 500,
"results_remaining": 499,
"matches": [
{
"match_id": 649218382,
"match_seq_num": 588750904,
"start_time": 1399560988,
"lobby_type": 0,
"players": [
{
"account_id": 4294967295,
"player_slot": 0,
"hero_id": 69
}
]
}
]
}
}
So far I have:
$matchhistoryjson = file_get_contents($apimatchhistoryurl);
$decodedmatchhistory = json_decode($matchhistoryjson, true);
$matchid = $decodedmatchhistory->{'match_id'};
But I'm pretty sure that's not the right way to do it at all. All I need out of this JSON file is the match id.

Answer 1

You are getting an array back from json_decode() as you passed the second parameter with a value of true so you access it like any multi-dimensional
array:
$matchhistoryjson = file_get_contents($apimatchhistoryurl);
$decodedmatchhistory = json_decode($matchhistoryjson, true);
echo $decodedmatchhistory['result']['matches'][0]['match_id'];
Demo
Naturally if you have multiple matches you wish to get the match ID for you can loop through $decodedmatchhistory['result']['matches'] and get them accordingly.

Answer 2

This is your code:
$matchhistoryjson = file_get_contents($apimatchhistoryurl);
$decodedmatchhistory = json_decode($matchhistoryjson, true);
$matchid = $decodedmatchhistory->{'match_id'};
Two issues. First when you set true in a call to json_decode() that returns the results as an array:
When TRUE, returned objects will be converted into associative arrays.
So you would access the data as an array like this:
$matchid = $decodedmatchhistory['match_id'];
But your original syntax is incorrect even if you were accessing the data as an object:
$matchid = $decodedmatchhistory->{'match_id'};
If you set json_decode() to false or even left that parameter out completely, you could do this instead:
$decodedmatchhistory = json_decode($matchhistoryjson);
$matchid = $decodedmatchhistory->match_id;
So try both out & see what happens.