Looping through JSON fails with json_decode - php

Question

I am pulling JSON data from a URL and attempting to display a list of just the display names.
In a way, this would be very easy too loop through if I knew that X amount of results would return each time. However, the results returned will vary from 0 to 50+.
I have done plenty of searches that all say "just use json_decode"... not so much the case.
I have the following JSON:
{
"ACK": "SUCCESS",
"ERROR": null,
"AGENT": {
"has_results": 1,
"agents": [
{
"display_name": "Alex",
"time_in_state": "5214",
"state": "Aux",
"callstakentoday": null,
"callsouttoday": null,
"agntpriority": null,
"skill_num": "76"
},
{
"display_name": "Bill",
"time_in_state": "6312",
"state": "Aux",
"callstakentoday": null,
"callsouttoday": null,
"agntpriority": null,
"skill_num": "76"
},
{
"display_name": "Carrie",
"time_in_state": "5982",
"state": "Aux",
"callstakentoday": null,
"callsouttoday": null,
"agntpriority": null,
"skill_num": "76"
},
{
"display_name": "David",
"time_in_state": "4226",
"state": "Aux",
"callstakentoday": null,
"callsouttoday": null,
"agntpriority": null,
"skill_num": "76"
}
]
},
"SKILL": {
"has_results": 1,
"num_skills": 1,
"skills": [
{
"display_name": "Phone Skills",
"skill_num": "76",
"callsinqueue": "0",
"callstoday": "9",
"abandtoday": "0",
"lwt": "0",
"ewt": "0",
"servicelvl": "100",
"avgspeedans": "6",
"talktime": "289"
}
]
},
"TIME": 1383766541
}
From the examples and documentation I have read, the following code has been created:
<?php
$url="http://myjsonurl.local";
$json = file_get_contents($url);
//echo $json;
$json = json_decode($json);
foreach($json as $item->display_name)
{
echo $item->agents->display_name;
}
?>
My end goal is to have a list of only names which I can then display in an alternate webpage.
So my question is... how do I read this page and format the data nicely (perhaps an array I can just print?) so I can utilize it in the future?

Answer 1

You have the following in your code:
foreach($json as $item->display_name)
This is incorrect and doesn't do what you want. As you can see by doing a print_r($json), the names are in $json->AGENT->agents, so you'll want to loop through those items and then traverse the display_name using arrow syntax ($item->display_name). Once you have the display name, you can push it into an array, and use it however you want.
Your loop should look like below:
$names = array(); // initialize empty array
foreach($json->AGENT->agents as $item)
{
$names[] = $item->display_name;
}
print_r($names); // see the array contents
Output:
Array
(
[0] => Alex
[1] => Bill
[2] => Carrie
[3] => David
)
Demo.
Note: If you don't know the structure of the JSON object beforehand, then you can use a nested foreach loop to retrieve the names.

Answer 2

The array you want to iterate is $json->AGENT->agents. Also, your foreach syntax is wrong.
Try:
foreach($json->AGENT->agents as $item)
{
echo $item->display_name;
}

Answer 3

If you want to get the JSON data as an array rather then an object, use json_decode($json, true) instead. This tells the function to return it as an associative array, as you can read here: http://php.net/manual/en/function.json-decode.php

Answer 4

You have an error in your foreach loop.
foreach($json as $item->display_name)
{
echo $item->agents->display_name;
}
$item is not an object and you are actually trying in this line to access property "display_name" of none object ($item)
foreach($json as $item)