PHP global variable shows null for first iteration of loop - php

Question

Sorry couldn't frame a better title.
So here's the problem
I have a function inside functions.php
function show_news(){
$id_counter = 1;
$json_news = array(
"id" => 0,
"title" => ""
);
$json_o = json_decode(file_get_contents(JSON_DATA_FOLDER.'news.json'));
foreach ($json_o as $id => $news_category)
{
echo '<h2>'.$id.'<h2>';
foreach ($news_category as $news)
{
if(IsNullOrEmptyString($news->id)){$json_news['id'] = $id_counter; $id_counter++;}
else{$json_news['id']=$news->id;}
if(!IsNullOrEmptyString($news->title)){$json_news['title']=$news->title;}
var_dump($json_news);
echo "<br/>-------<br/>";
include('news-layout.php');
}
}
}
I'm reading a json file and for each element I am assigning its value to an array.
Then I'm including 'news-layout.php'. For testing purposes I've kept just these 3 lines of code inside 'news-layout.php'
<?php
global $json_news;
var_dump($json_news);
echo"<br/>=======================<hr/>";
?>
So I'm doing a var_dump inside my function as well as on the included page. But I'm getting strange result. Everything works fine except that var_dump($json_news) on included page shows NULL for first iteration of loop !!
Here's the output
todays_specials
array(2) { ["id"]=> int(1) ["title"]=> string(26) "Okie Since I have to do it" }
-------
NULL
=======================
array(2) { ["id"]=> int(2) ["title"]=> string(16) "Vegetable Samosa" }
-------
array(2) { ["id"]=> int(2) ["title"]=> string(16) "Vegetable Samosa" }
=======================
array(2) { ["id"]=> int(3) ["title"]=> string(16) "Vegetable Pakora" }
-------
array(2) { ["id"]=> int(3) ["title"]=> string(16) "Vegetable Pakora" }
=======================
You can see that strange NULL coming there.
Can anyone explain what's happening or how to fix it?

Answer 1

Your $json_news var is local to the functions file first. Then the layout file is included and you create the global $json_news var, and from then on the global is used. Set it to global in your functions file and remove the variable declaration in the layout file and you should be good to go!
Like this:
function show_news(){
$id_counter = 1;
global $json_news = array(
"id" => 0,
"title" => ""
);
$json_o = json_decode(file_get_contents(JSON_DATA_FOLDER.'news.json'));
foreach ($json_o as $id => $news_category){
echo '<h2>'.$id.'<h2>';
foreach ($news_category as $news){
if(IsNullOrEmptyString($news->id)){
$json_news['id'] = $id_counter; $id_counter++;
}else{
$json_news['id']=$news->id;
}
if(!IsNullOrEmptyString($news->title)){
$json_news['title']=$news->title;
}
var_dump($json_news);
echo "<br/>-------<br/>";
include('news-layout.php');
}
}
}
'news-layout.php'
<?php
var_dump($json_news);
echo"<br/>=======================<hr/>";
?>
Side note: using globals like that is not to be recommended!