php json_encode formatting results? - php

Question

I have:
$all = array(
array('id'=>1, 'cat'=>'Main','type'=>'Name0'),
array('id'=>2, 'cat'=>'Main','type'=>'Name1'),
array('id'=>3, 'cat'=>'Main','type'=>'Name3'),
array('id'=>4, 'cat'=>'Main','type'=>'Name4'),
array('id'=>5, 'cat'=>'Secondary','type'=>'Name5'),
array('id'=>6, 'cat'=>'Secondary','type'=>'Name6'),
array('id'=>7, 'cat'=>'Secondary','type'=>'Name7'),
array('id'=>8, 'cat'=>'Other','type'=>'Name8'),
array('id'=>9, 'cat'=>'Other','type'=>'Name9'),
array('id'=>10, 'cat'=>'Other','type'=>'Name10'),
array('id'=>11, 'cat'=>'Other','type'=>'Name11'),
);
$result = array();
foreach($all as $array){
$result[$array['cat']][] = array('id'=>$array['id'],'type'=>$array['type']);
}
$json_type = json_encode($result);
Which returns:
{"Main":[{"id":"1","type":"name1"},{"id":"2","type":"name2"},{"id":"3","type":"name3"},{"id":"4","type":"name4"}],"Secondary":[{"id":"5","type":"name5"},{"id":"6","type":"name6"},{"id":"7","type":"name7"}],"Other":[{"id":"8","type":"name8"},{"id":"9","type":"name9"},{"id":"10","type":"name10"},{"id":"11","type":"name11"}]}
But I need it to return as:
[
{
"text": "Main",
"children": [
{
"id": "1",
"text": "name1"
},
{
"id": "2",
"text": "name2"
},
{
"id": "3",
"text": "name3"
},
{
"id": "4",
"text": "name4"
}
]
},
{
"text": "Secondary",
"children": [
{
"id": "5",
"text": "name5"
},
{
"id": "6",
"text": "name6"
},
{
"id": "7",
"text": "name7"
}
]
},
{
"text": "Other",
"children": [
{
"id": "8",
"text": "name8"
},
{
"id": "9",
"text": "name9"
},
{
"id": "10",
"text": "name10"
},
{
"id": "11",
"text": "name11"
}
]
}
]
To work with the select2 JQuery plugin, I'm working with.
the 'children' name doesn't matter, I think that's just a placeholder so it gets parsed correctly. I'm not sure how I would go about it, I've been trying str_replace() but even that hasn't been working out so great.

Answer 1

I would to it in 2 loops. The first one to group results by category, the 2nd one to format it to fit your needs:
$temp = array();
foreach($all as $array){
if (!isset($temp[$array['cat']])) {
$temp[$array['cat']] = array();
}
$temp[$array['cat']][] = array('id'=>$array['id'], 'type'=>$array['type']);
}
$result = array();
foreach ($temp as $key=>$value) {
$result[] = array('text'=>$key, 'children'=>$value);
}
echo json_encode($result);
This produces the following output:
[{"text":"Main","children":[{"id":1,"type":"Name0"},{"id":2,"type":"Name1"},{"id":3,"type":"Name3"},{"id":4,"type":"Name4"}]},{"text":"Secondary","children":[{"id":5,"type":"Name5"},{"id":6,"type":"Name6"},{"id":7,"type":"Name7"}]},{"text":"Other","children":[{"id":8,"type":"Name8"},{"id":9,"type":"Name9"},{"id":10,"type":"Name10"},{"id":11,"type":"Name11"}]}]