Use foreach() to loop through object and change values

Question

I've got a problem looping trough an object ( stdObject ) and altering a value.

What happens is:

• a query result comes in the function.
• It fetches the object to an 'array'
• After that I need to decode the content inside the object with html_entity_decode() to convert & etc. to readable characters...

Thats what is going wrong. I don't know how to put the converted string back into the object.

Here is the code of this function.

function jsonRequestHandlerUTF8($query) {
    $id = "0";
    $message = errorHandler($id);
    $a_result = array();
    if (mysql_num_rows($query) == 0) {
        //Empty sql query
        $id = '1';
        $a_result = jSONErrorObject($id);
    } else {
        //No error occurred
        $a_result['ExceptionId'] = $id;
        $a_result['ExceptionMessage'] = $message;
        $a_result['Items'] = null;
        while ($my_result = mysql_fetch_object($query)) {
            $a_result['Items'][] = $my_result;
        }

        $test = $a_result['Items'];
        foreach ($test as $v1) {
            foreach ($v1 as $v2) {
                $v2 = html_entity_decode($v2, ENT_QUOTES, "utf-8") . "\n";
// Here should be code to get the $v2 inside the object again.....                
            }
        }
}
    $a_result = json_encode($a_result);
    return $a_result;
}

$a_result['Items'] looks like this:

Array
(
    [0] => stdClass Object
        (
            [idziekmeldingen] => 1
            [meldingID] => 13190
            [title] => Ziekmelding: Alex
            [published] => 2011-05-09
            [updated] => 2011-05-09
            [content] => Per 9-05-2011 heeft Alex zich ziek gemeld.
            [location] => AP
            [institute] => CMI
            [lastCron] => 2011-05-11 11:32:54
        )

    [1] => stdClass Object
        (
            [idziekmeldingen] => 2
            [meldingID] => 12933
            [title] => Ziekmelding: Rimmert
            [published] => 2011-04-26
            [updated] => 2011-04-26
            [content] => Per 26-04-2011 heeft Rimmer zich ziek gemeld.Met vriendelijke groet,Luciënne Plomp
            [location] => AP
            [institute] => CMI
            [lastCron] => 2011-05-11 11:32:54
        )
)

Answer 1

Use the & symbol to pass the variables into the loop by-reference. This will mean you're modifying the actual variable rather than a copy of it.

foreach ($test as &$v1) {
    foreach ($v1 as &$v2) {
        $v2 = html_entity_decode($v2, ENT_QUOTES, "utf-8") . "\n";               
    }
}

(note, this only works in PHP 5.0 and up.... but if you're still using PHP4, you really need to upgrade!)