PHP JSON add array - php

Question

i need some assistance with properly generating JSON. I almost have it, but I need to have each category and its related item in its own array. I have multiple categories each with many items under them. My JSON looks good, i just need the categories as an array along with its items. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Here is my code:
$channel ['items']['post']['categories'][$category_name]['details'][] = array(
'title' => $title,
'price' => $price,
'date_time' => $date_time,
'description' => $description,
);
}
$channels = array($channel);
$json = json_encode($channel);
header('Content-type: application/json');
echo $json;
My JSON looks like this currently:
{
"items": { /// THIS IS MEANT TO ORGANIZE UNDER ITEMS
"post": { ///THIS IS PROBABLY UNNECESSARY, I JUST HAVEN'T REMOVED IT.
"categories": {
"Baby": { ///I HAVE MANY MANY CATEGORIES
"details": [ ///I HAVE MANY MANY ITEMS UNDER EACH CATEGORY
{
"title": "trying with category id again",
"price": "3344.55",
"date_time": "2013-11-11 17:33:49",
"description": "Descriptor sb ",
"category_id": "3",
},
]
But I want it to look like this:
{
"items": {
"categories": [{ /// NEED THE BRACKET HERE
"Baby": {
"details": [
{
"title": "trying with category id again",
"price": "3344.55",
"date_time": "2013-11-11 17:33:49",
"description": "Descriptor sb ",
},
{
"title": "what the",
"price": "44444.66",
"date_time": "2013-11-18 20:15:58",
"description": "Blah blah",
},
]
},
"Baby Stuff": {
"details": [
{
"title": "putting in title",
"price": "3000.99",
"date_time": "2013-11-11 17:42:15",
"description": "Blah blah blah",
},
{
"title": "adding another listing",
"price": "400000.99",
"date_time": "2013-11-17 22:37:02",
"description": "Blah blah blah",
},
]
},
"More Baby Stuff": {
"details": [
{
"title": "does this work",
"price": "4000.77",
"date_time": "2013-11-18 19:59:49",
"description": "Description ",
},
{

Answer 1

Add another [] after ['categories'] and that should do the trick
$channel ['items']['post']['categories'][][$category_name]['details'][] = array( // ...
$channel ['items']['post']['categories'][]['Baby']['details'][] = array(
'title' => 'trying with category id again',
'price' => 3344.55,
'date_time' => '2013-11-11 17:33:49',
'description' => 'Descriptor sb',
);
$channels = array($channel);
$json = json_encode($channel);
echo $json;
Output
{
"items": {
"post": {
"categories": [
{
"Baby": {
"details": [
{
"title": "trying with category id again",
"price": 3344.55,
"date_time": "2013-11-11 17:33:49",
"description": "Descriptor sb"
}
]
}
}
]
}
}
}
See it working here on ideone

Answer 2

Based on comments and edits to OP, perhaps you should be looking at a data structure like this:
{
"categories":
[
{
"category_name": "Baby",
... [Other category metadata],
"category_items":
[
{
"item_name": "Item Name",
... [Other item information]
},
{ [next item] },
...
]
},
{ [ next category ] },
...
]
}
This means one might build this object in similar manner to the following (assuming for example you are building this from DB query):
$channel = new stdClass();
$channel->categories = array();
LOOP for categories as $category
$category = new stdClass();
$category->category_name = 'some value';
$category->some_other_category_metadata = 'some other value';
$category->category_items = array();
INNER LOOP on items in category as $item
$item = new stdClass();
$item->item_name = 'item name';
$item->some_other_item_data = 'data';
$category->category_items[] = $item;
END INNER LOOP
$channel->categories[] = $category;
END OUTER LOOP
json_encode($channel);