Referencing a dynamic associative array position - php

Question

I'm requesting data from an online source which I then decode into json StdClass objects (using php). Once I've done this I have the following (see below). I'm trying to extract the elements in 'otherstuff' by doing echo $response->stuff->WHAT GOES HERE?->otherstuff
However I cant hard code the [2010-12] because its a date, is there any way I can call e.g. $response->stuff->nextsibling->stuff
I hope this makes sense to someone :D Currently i'm bastardising this with a $key => $value for loop and extracting the key value and using it in my $response->stuff->$key->stuff call.
stdClass Object
(
[commentary] =>
[stuff] => stdClass Object
(
**[2010-12]** => stdClass Object
(
[otherstuff] => stdClass Object
(
[otherstuffrate] => 1
[otherstufflevel] => 1
[otherstufftotal] => 1
)
)
)
)

Answer 1

StdClass instances can be used with some Array Functions, among them
current — Return the current element in an array and
key — Fetch a key from an array
So you can do (codepad)
$obj = new StdClass;
$obj->{"2012-10"} = 'foo';
echo current($obj); // foo
echo key($obj); // 2012-10
On a sidenote, object properties should not start with a number and they may not contain dashes, so instead of working with StdClass objects, pass in TRUE as the second argument to json_decode. Returned objects will be converted into associative arrays then.

Answer 2

The date key must be a string, otherwise PHP breaks ;).
echo $response->stuff['2010-12']->otherstuff
Retrieve it using a string.

Answer 3

Edited again: added object code also
json decode it as associative array, and use key fetched through array_keys . See it work here : http://codepad.org/X8HCubIO
<?php
$str = '{
"commentary" : null,
"stuff" : {
"ANYDATE" : {
"otherstuff": {
"otherstuffrate" : 1,
"otherstufflevel" : 1,
"otherstufftotal" : 1
}
}
}
}';
$obj = json_decode($str,true);
$reqKey = array_keys($obj["stuff"]);
$req = $obj["stuff"][$reqKey[0]]["otherstuff"];
print_r($req);
print "====================as object ============\n";
$obj = json_decode($str);
$req = current($obj->stuff)->otherstuff;
print_r($req);
?>