CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phparraysjson
Mark
Mark

Reputation: 137

order of JSON with multiple arrays in php with varying number of objects

I have never needed json previously, so I have almost zero experience...

I am outputting multiple arrays into a json file using the following code:

$file= 'myfile.json';

$contents = array('name' => $name,'busname' => $busname,'busdesc' => $busdesc, etc, etc);
    $newcont=json_encode($contents, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
    print_r($newcont);
    file_put_contents($file, $newcont);

This is working as expected, and the output gives me something similar to this:

"name": [
    "joe blogs",
    "random name 2",
    "random name 3",
    etc,
    etc
],
"busname": [

    "ABC business",
    "DEF business",
    "HIJ business",
    etc,
    etc
],
"busdesc": [
    "We do stuff",
    "We do other stuff",
    "We don't do anything",
    etc,
    etc
],

etc

Is it possible to (with a simple method) have the output to be more like:

"id1": [  "joe blogs", "ABC business", "We do stuff", etc ]
"id2":  [   "random name 2", "DEF business", "We do other stuff", etc ]
"id3":  [   "random name 3", "HIJ business", "We don't do anything", etc ]
etc

Layout is not particularly important, but getting them grouped together is.

I have had little success with getting relevant results from Google searches.

The reason I ask for a simple method, is that I am sure I can come up with some fancy loop that counts the number of entries first, then loops to keep adding the relevant data - and that may well be the answer, but I just wanted to know.

Many thanks

Edit:

I have undeleted this as my attempt at fixing did not work.

Here is the code:

$results = mysqli_query($con,"SELECT * FROM membersites  WHERE id>0 ORDER BY id, busname");
$totalmem = mysqli_num_rows($results);
while($business = mysqli_fetch_array($results))
{
    $r1 = $business['id'];
    $id[]=$r1;
    $r2 = $business['name'];
    $name[]=$r2;
    $r4 = $business['busname'];
    $busname[]=$r4;
    $r5 = $business['busdesc'];
    $busdesc[]=$r5; 

    $all[] = "'id:''".$r1."''name:''".$r2."''busname:''".$r4."''busdesc:''".$r5."'";
}

$contents = array('members' => $all);
$newcont=json_encode($contents, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
print_r($newcont);

This almost worked as all the data is grouped correctly, however I am only getting one object (members) with all the users inside, not individual objects for each user.

Again, please bare in mind that this is the first project that I have had to output any json files.

Any help will be appreciated :)

Edit 2 (for clarity)

Final output needs to look like this

{
    [
        {
            "id":"1",
            "name":"joe blogs",
            "busname":"ABC business",
            "busdesc":"We do stuff"
        },
        {
            "id":"2",
            "name":"joe blogs",
            "busname":"random name 2",
            "busdesc":"We do other stuff"
        },
        etc
    ]
}

This file is going to be read by a mobile app - the app developer has just told me that it need to be in this format.

Apologies for being awkward.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 60

Answers (2)

miken32
miken32

Reputation: 42712

I'd recommend using PDO for database access instead of mysqli, which was originally developed as a stopgap replacement for the old mysql extension. But, using mysqli this should work:

$result = $con->query("SELECT id, name, busname, busdesc FROM membersites WHERE id > 0 ORDER BY id, busname");
$data = $result->fetch_all();
$json = json_encode($data, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
file_put_contents($file, $json);

You should avoid using SELECT * when possible. It reduces overhead, and ensures that you know the order of columns you're receiving. The mysqli_result::fetch_all() function pulls all the records at once, so no need for a loop.

Upvotes: 2

Dharman
Dharman

Reputation: 33374

When you loop on your records from DB, build a multi-dimensional array:

while($business = mysqli_fetch_array($results))
{
    $all[] = [
        'id' => $business['id'],
        'name' => $business['name'],
        'busname' => $business['busname'],
        'busdesc' => $business['busdesc'],
    ];
    // or 
    $all[] = $business;
    // or 
    $all[ $business['id'] ] = $business;
}

Then you can encode your multidimensional array into JSON like this:

$newcont = json_encode($all, JSON_FORCE_OBJECT | JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

the addition of JSON_FORCE_OBJECT will preserve numerical keys (i.e. when you add using $all[])

Upvotes: 2

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