How can I parse a JSON file with PHP? [duplicate]

Question

I tried to parse a JSON file using PHP. But I am stuck now.

This is the content of my JSON file:

{
    "John": {
        "status":"Wait"
    },
    "Jennifer": {
        "status":"Active"
    },
    "James": {
        "status":"Active",
        "age":56,
        "count":10,
        "progress":0.0029857,
        "bad":0
    }
}

And this is what I have tried so far:

<?php

$string = file_get_contents("/home/michael/test.json");
$json_a = json_decode($string, true);

echo $json_a['John'][status];
echo $json_a['Jennifer'][status];

But because I don't know the names (like 'John', 'Jennifer') and all available keys and values (like 'age', 'count') beforehand, I think I need to create some foreach loop.

I would appreciate an example for this.

Answer 1

To iterate over a multidimensional array, you can use RecursiveArrayIterator

$jsonIterator = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(
    new RecursiveArrayIterator(json_decode($json, TRUE)),
    RecursiveIteratorIterator::SELF_FIRST);

foreach ($jsonIterator as $key => $val) {
    if(is_array($val)) {
        echo "$key:\n";
    } else {
        echo "$key => $val\n";
    }
}

Output:

John:
status => Wait
Jennifer:
status => Active
James:
status => Active
age => 56
count => 10
progress => 0.0029857
bad => 0

run on codepad

Answer 2

I can't believe so many people are posting answers without reading the JSON properly.

If you foreach iterate $json_a alone, you have an object of objects. Even if you pass in true as the second parameter, you have a two-dimensional array. If you're looping through the first dimension you can't just echo the second dimension like that. So this is wrong:

foreach ($json_a as $k => $v) {
   echo $k, ' : ', $v;
}

To echo the statuses of each person, try this:

<?php

$string = file_get_contents("/home/michael/test.json");
if ($string === false) {
    // deal with error...
}

$json_a = json_decode($string, true);
if ($json_a === null) {
    // deal with error...
}

foreach ($json_a as $person_name => $person_a) {
    echo $person_a['status'];
}

?>

Answer 3

The most elegant solution:

$shipments = json_decode(file_get_contents("shipments.js"), true);
print_r($shipments);

Remember that the json-file has to be encoded in UTF-8 without BOM. If the file has BOM, then json_decode will return NULL.

Alternatively:

$shipments = json_encode(json_decode(file_get_contents("shipments.js"), true));
echo $shipments;

Answer 4

Try

<?php
$string = file_get_contents("/home/michael/test.json");
$json_a = json_decode($string,true);

foreach ($json_a as $key => $value){
  echo  $key . ':' . $value;
}
?>

Answer 5

It's completely beyond me that no one pointed out that your begining "tags" are wrong. You're creating an object with {}, while you could create an array with [].

[ // <-- Note that I changed this
    {
        "name" : "john", // And moved the name here.
        "status":"Wait"
    },
    {
        "name" : "Jennifer",
        "status":"Active"
    },
    {
        "name" : "James",
        "status":"Active",
        "age":56,
        "count":10,
        "progress":0.0029857,
        "bad":0
    }
] // <-- And this.

With this change, the json will be parsed as an array instead of an object. And with that array, you can do whatever you want, like loops etc.

Answer 6

Try This

    $json_data = '{
    "John": {
        "status":"Wait"
    },
    "Jennifer": {
        "status":"Active"
    },
    "James": {
        "status":"Active",
        "age":56,
        "count":10,
        "progress":0.0029857,
        "bad":0
      }
     }';

    $decode_data = json_decode($json_data);
    foreach($decode_data as $key=>$value){

            print_r($value);
    }

Answer 7

Try:

$string = file_get_contents("/home/michael/test.json");
$json = json_decode($string, true);

foreach ($json as $key => $value) {
    if (!is_array($value)) {
        echo $key . '=>' . $value . '<br />';
    } else {
        foreach ($value as $key => $val) {
            echo $key . '=>' . $val . '<br />';
        }
    }
}

Answer 8

More standard answer:

$jsondata = file_get_contents(PATH_TO_JSON_FILE."/jsonfile.json");

$array = json_decode($jsondata,true);

foreach($array as $k=>$val):
    echo '<b>Name: '.$k.'</b></br>';
    $keys = array_keys($val);
    foreach($keys as $key):
        echo '&nbsp;'.ucfirst($key).' = '.$val[$key].'</br>';
    endforeach;
endforeach;

And the output is:

Name: John
 Status = Wait
Name: Jennifer
 Status = Active
Name: James
 Status = Active
 Age = 56
 Count = 10
 Progress = 0.0029857
 Bad = 0

Answer 9

Loop through the JSON with a foreach loop as key-value pairs. Do type-checking to determine if more looping needs to be done.

foreach($json_a as $key => $value) {
    echo $key;
    if (gettype($value) == "object") {
        foreach ($value as $key => $value) {
          # and so on
        }
    }
}

Answer 10

<?php
$json = '{
    "response": {
        "data": [{"identifier": "Be Soft Drinker, Inc.", "entityName": "BusinessPartner"}],
        "status": 0,
        "totalRows": 83,
        "startRow": 0,
        "endRow": 82
    }
}';
$json = json_decode($json, true);
//echo '<pre>'; print_r($json); exit;
echo $json['response']['data'][0]['identifier'];
$json['response']['data'][0]['entityName']
echo $json['response']['status']; 
echo $json['response']['totalRows']; 
echo $json['response']['startRow']; 
echo $json['response']['endRow']; 

?>

Answer 11

Try it:

foreach ($json_a as $key => $value)
 {
   echo $key, ' : ';
   foreach($value as $v)
   {
       echo $v."  ";
   }
}

Answer 12

When you decode a json string, you will get an object. not an array. So the best way to see the structure you are getting, is to make a var_dump of the decode. (this var_dump can help you understand the structure, mainly in complex cases).

<?php
     $json = file_get_contents('/home/michael/test.json');
     $json_a = json_decode($json);
     var_dump($json_a); // just to see the structure. It will help you for future cases
     echo "\n";
     foreach($json_a as $row){
         echo $row->status;
         echo "\n";
     }
?>

Answer 13

$json_a = json_decode($string, TRUE);
$json_o = json_decode($string);



foreach($json_a as $person => $value)
{
    foreach($value as $key => $personal)
    {
        echo $person. " with ".$key . " is ".$personal;
        echo "<br>";
    }

}