Removing array index reference when using json_encode()

Question

I have made a small application using jQuery's datepicker. I am setting unavailable dates to it from a JSON file which looks like this:

{ "dates": ["2013-12-11", "2013-12-10", "2013-12-07", "2013-12-04"] } 

I would like to check if a date given is already in this list and remove it if so. My current code looks like this:

if (isset($_GET['date'])) //the date given {     if ($_GET['roomType'] == 2)     {         $myFile = "bookedDates2.json";         $date = $_GET['date'];         if (file_exists($myFile))         {             $arr = json_decode(file_get_contents($myFile), true);             if (!in_array($date, $arr['dates']))             {                 $arr['dates'][] = $_GET['date']; //adds the date into the file if it is not there already             }             else             {                 foreach ($arr['dates'] as $key => $value)                 {                     if (in_array($date, $arr['dates']))                     {                         unset($arr['dates'][$key]);                         array_values($arr['dates']);                     }                 }             }         }          $arr = json_encode($arr);         file_put_contents($myFile, $arr);     } } 

My problem here is that after I encode the array again, it looks like this:

{ "dates": ["1":"2013-12-11", "2":"2013-12-10", "3":"2013-12-07", "4":"2013-12-04"] } 

Is there a way to find the date match in the JSON file and remove it, without the keys appearing after the encode?

Answer 1

Use array_values() for your issue:

$arr['dates'] = array_values($arr['dates']); //.. $arr = json_encode($arr); 

Why? Because you're unsetting array's key without re-ordering it. So after this the only way to keep that in JSON will be encode keys too. After applying array_values(), however, you'll get ordered keys (starting from 0) which can be encoded properly without including keys.