How to get values from nested JSON data? - php

Question

Here's my JSON code:
{
"query": {
"count": 2,
"created": "2013-04-03T09:47:03Z",
"lang": "en-US",
"results": {
"yctCategories": {
"yctCategory": {
"score": "0.504762",
"content": "Computing"
}
},
"entities": {
"entity": [
{
"score": "0.902",
"text": {
"end": "19",
"endchar": "19",
"start": "0",
"startchar": "0",
"content": "Computer programming"
},
"wiki_url": "http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Computer_programming"
},
{
"score": "0.575",
"text": {
"end": "51",
"endchar": "51",
"start": "41",
"startchar": "41",
"content": "programming"
}
}
]
}
}
}
}
and below is my PHP code
$json_o = json_decode($json,true);
echo "Json result:</br>";
echo $json; // json
echo "</br></br>";
echo "Value result:</br>";
$result = array();
//$entity = $json_o['query']['results']['entities']['entity'];
foreach ($json_o['query']['results']['entities']['entity'] as $theentity)
foreach ($theentity['text'] as $thetext){
$result[] = $thetext['content'];
}
print_r($result);
My expectation is to get the value of content in entity, which is "Computer programming" and "programming".
I already searching around, but still have found the solution yet.
The result of my PHP code is:
Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => 1 [2] => 0 [3] => 0 [4] => C [5] => 5 [6] => 5 [7] => 4 [8] => 4 [9] => p )

Answer 1

Use this loop
foreach ($json_o['query']['results']['entities']['entity'] as $theentity)
{
$result[] = $theentity['text']['content'];
}
http://codepad.viper-7.com/tFxh1w
Output Array ( [0] => Computer programming [1] => programming )

Answer 2

Change your foreach to:
$result = array();
foreach ($json_o['query']['results']['entities']['entity'] as $theentity) {
$result[] = $theentity['text']['content'];
}
print_r($result);
$theentity['text'] is an array of keys => value. You can just access key content instead of looping through all of the entries.
Another way you could do it (though it is a poor choice) is:
foreach($theentity['text'] as $key => $value) {
if( 'content' === $key ) {
$result[] = $value;
}
}
I provide this second example to demonstrate why the original code did not work.
Update
To access other properties like the yctCategories just do something similar
$categories = array();
foreach ($json_o['query']['results']['yctCategories'] as $yctCategory) {
$categories[] = $yctCategory['content'];
}
print_r($categories);

Answer 3

remove the second foreach and replace it with $result[] = $theentity['text']['content'];
using something like http://jsonlint.com/ might make it easier for you to see how the json is structured. alternatively just var_dump (or print_r) the output of your json_decode.

Answer 4

Use simple code:
$array = $json_o['query']['results']['entities']['entity'];
foreach($array as $v){
echo $v['text']['content'];
}