Json_Encode outputting with additional arrays - php

Question

I'm struggling with the output of json_encode. I'm attempting to speed up our large dropdown navigation menu by storing everything in a json file that gets updated once a day and calling that when required.
I'm producing the json using json_encode, but it seems to be looping everything into additional, unneccessary, arrays and I can't figure out how to prevent this.
I've even tried fiddling with str_replace but had no success in generating valid json (though clearly this isn't really a long term solution in any case). I've also tried to figure out what combination of "each" I would need to get into the nestled arrays, but haven't found the right combination.
Below is the json I'm ending up with (I've reduced the number of entries to make it easier to see, the format is the same... just within each of Film, Gaming etc there are more items).
[
[
"Film",
[
{
"title": "13 Awkward Moments That Must Have Happened After The End Of Famous Movies",
"link": "http:\/\/whatculture.com\/film\/13-awkward-moments-that-must-have-happened-after-the-end-of-famous-movies.php",
"image": [
"http:\/\/cdn3.whatculture.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/HP-100x60.jpg",
100,
60,
true
]
}
]
],
[
"TV",
[
{
"title": "10 Awesome TV Twists You Never Saw Coming",
"link": "http:\/\/whatculture.com\/tv\/10-awesome-tv-twists-you-never-saw-coming.php",
"image": [
"http:\/\/cdn3.whatculture.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/lost-locke-100x60.jpg",
100,
60,
true
]
}
]
],
[
"Gaming",
[
{
"title": "WWE 2K14: Every Possible Classic Match",
"link": "http:\/\/whatculture.com\/gaming\/wwe-2k14-every-possible-classic-match.php",
"image": [
"http:\/\/cdn3.whatculture.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/444-100x60.jpg",
100,
60,
true
]
}
]
]
]
And this is the script I'm using to generate said code:
I've included everything for completeness. A lot of the below is just the Wordpress query to pull back my relevant data:
$cats = array("Film","TV","Gaming","Sport","Music");
function filter_where($where = '') {
$where .= " AND post_date > '" . date('Y-m-d', strtotime('-3 days')) . "'";
return $where;
}
add_filter('posts_where', 'filter_where');
foreach($cats as $cat) {
$the_query = array(
'numberposts' => 5,
'category_name' => $cat,
'meta_key' => "visitcount",
'orderby' => "meta_value_num",
'suppress_filters' => false );
$special_query_results = get_posts($the_query);
foreach( $special_query_results as $post ) {
setup_postdata($post);
$myposts[] = array('title'=> html_entity_decode(get_the_title()),'link'=>get_permalink(get_the_ID()),'image'=>wp_get_attachment_image_src( get_post_thumbnail_id(get_the_ID()), 'smallthumb' ));
}
$pop_posts[] = array($cat,$myposts);
unset($myposts);
} // foreach cats as cat1000
wp_reset_postdata();
remove_filter('posts_where', 'filter_where');
$json_pop = json_encode($pop_posts,JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
This is what I'm using to pull it back when user hovers on the nav item:
$.getJSON('http://whatculture.com/data/wc6.json', function(popular) {
$.each(popular.Sport, function() {
$('.popularMenu').append("<li><img src="+this.image[0]+" />"+this.title+"</li>");
});
});

Answer 1

This is a bit of a guess (see my comment regarding a need to clarify which arrays you see as "unnecessary") but the line that stands out to me is this:
$pop_posts[] = array($cat,$myposts);
This can be translated as "create a 2-element array, whose first member is $cat (the name of the category) and whose second member is $myposts (an array of posts); add this 2-element array as the last member of the array $pop_posts". The result is that $pop_posts is an array of two-element arrays.
Perhaps what you wanted to say was "set the key $cat of the associative array $pop_posts to the value $myposts (an array of posts)", which would be this:
$pop_posts[$cat] = $myposts;
That would make the resulting structure simpler, as instead of an array of 2-element arrays, you would have a single hash (PHP associative array, JS object) whose keys were categories, and whose values were the popular posts for that category.
However, there are two disadvantages:
It wouldn't work if the category names were not unique, since a key cannot exist more than once in a hash. I don't think this applies here.
JSON hashes (and the JS object they create) are unordered key-value collections. So if you want to preserve the order of your categories, you need a different mechanism (either the array-of-arrays you already have, or an additional array storing the "correct" order to visit the keys). In your example, you reference Sport specifically, so this may not be an issue.