What sort of object is this and how to use it?

Question

What would be the correct name for this type of array?

There are 3 main sections and 4 sub-parts consisting of "issuedTime" "text" "url" and "validToTime", how do you start to convert this to an object? If there was only 1 main section, it would be fairly simple to do however with 3 main parts and no identification for each main section has me scratching my head as where to start.

Any advise appreciated.

[{
"issuedTime":"7:13pm Sunday 13 June 2010",
"text":"\nAmended 7:10pm.\n\nText text and more text\n",
"url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
"validToTime":"12:00am Monday 14 June 2010"
},{
"issuedTime":"8:33pm Sunday 13 June 2010",
"text":"\nText and more text.\n",
"url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
"validToTime":"12:00pm Monday 14 June 2010"
},{
"issuedTime":"10:40am Sunday 13 June 2010",
"text":"\nAnd even more text.",
"url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
"validToTime":"12:00am Tuesday 15 June 2010"
}
]

Answer 1

JSON (an acronym for JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight text-based open standard designed for human-readable data interchange. It is derived from the JavaScript programming language for representing simple data structures and associative arrays, called objects. Despite its relationship to JavaScript, it is language-independent, with parsers available for virtually every programming language.

You can easily convert it into php array with json_decode function, here is an example from php site:

$json = '{"a":1,"b":2,"c":3,"d":4,"e":5}';
var_dump(json_decode($json, true));

Result:

array(5) {
    ["a"] => int(1)
    ["b"] => int(2)
    ["c"] => int(3)
    ["d"] => int(4)
    ["e"] => int(5)
}

The second parameter to json_decode is whether or not it should be converted into associative array. If you don't specify the second parameter, the output will be like:

object(stdClass)#1 (5) {
    ["a"] => int(1)
    ["b"] => int(2)
    ["c"] => int(3)
    ["d"] => int(4)
    ["e"] => int(5)
}

So, you can convert it to array and loop through it like:

$json = '{"a":1,"b":2,"c":3,"d":4,"e":5}';
$array = json_decode($json, true);
print_r($array);

foreach($array as $key => $value)
{
   // manipulate the var $value
}

Answer 2

Have you tried json_decode()? It should parse this correctly to a stdObject.

Answer 3

Have a look at: http://www.lost-in-code.com/programming/php-code/php-array-to-object/

Answer 4

Here's how to parse that json

<?php
$json = '[{
    "issuedTime":"7:13pm Sunday 13 June 2010",
    "text":"\nAmended 7:10pm.\n\nText text and more text\n",
    "url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
    "validToTime":"12:00am Monday 14 June 2010"
    },{
    "issuedTime":"8:33pm Sunday 13 June 2010",
    "text":"\nText and more text.\n",
    "url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
    "validToTime":"12:00pm Monday 14 June 2010"
    },{
    "issuedTime":"10:40am Sunday 13 June 2010",
    "text":"\nAnd even more text.",
    "url":"\/folder\/fc\/name.png",
    "validToTime":"12:00am Tuesday 15 June 2010"
}]';
// Parse the json into a PHP array that holds multiple "stdClass Object"s
$obj = json_decode($json);  
// Iterate through each "stdClass Object" and show what it contains  
foreach($obj as $var => $value)
{
    echo "Number: $var <br/>";    
    echo "Issued: " . $obj[$var]->issuedTime . "<br/>";                    
    echo "Text: " . $obj[$var]->text . "<br/>";    
    echo "URL: " . $obj[$var]->url . "<br/>";    
    echo "Valid to: " . $obj[$var]->validToTime . "<br/>";       
    echo "<br/>";
}
?>

Once you have $obj, you can access it like in the foreach loop above, or to access, let's say the text in the second listing you would use:

echo $obj[1]->text; // Second listing, since the first listing is $obj[0]

And HTML link w text for the same:

echo '<a href="' . $obj[1]->url . '">' . $obj[1]->text . '</a>';