Parsing data outside brackets in JSON in PHP

Question

So I'm trying to parse some JSON that the Youtube API returns. I've been breaking my head over understanding how to parse JSON in PHP and I can't seem to figure it out.

This is basically the output of the API:

{
 "kind": "youtube#channelListResponse",
 "etag": "\"uQc-MPTsstrHkQcRXL3IWLmeNsM/mgiCAEvrnAFhKSCga80wVfAbUtc\"",
 "pageInfo": {
  "totalResults": 1,
  "resultsPerPage": 1
 },
 "items": [
  {
   "kind": "youtube#channel",
   "etag": "\"uQc-MPTsstrHkQcRXL3IWLmeNsM/cndol6pHIKmkRCizokwycOOUr2E\"",
   "id": "SWMb9NxQL9I6c",
   "snippet": {
    "title": "Koffee With Karan",
    "description": "Catch Karan Johar chat up Bollywood, secrets revealed and stories told , that's how the world will remember Koffee with Karan",
    "thumbnails": {
     "default": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/sh/554333074/showposter_thumb.jpg"
     },
     "medium": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/sh/554333074/showposter.jpg"
     },
     "high": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/sh/554333074/showposter_hq.jpg"
     }
    }
   }
  }
 ]
}

What I want to get is pretty much everything in "snippet", I need the title, description and thumbnails. I've been trying to access it like this:

$getjson = file_get_contents('https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/channels?part=snippet&id=SWMb9NxQL9I6c&key=mykey');
$data = json_decode($getjson,true);

echo $data['items'][0]['snippet'][0]['title'];

or even trying something like

echo $data['items']->snippet->title;

I've found numerous articles explaining how but nothing seems to work or make sense. First of all, the "items" data is outside of the starting { } brackets, which I haven't really been able to find anything about.

Any help and primarily an explanation about how this works would be awesome. I just want to understand the syntax needed to access this stuff.

Close ... snippet isn't an array but an object, so you don't need `['snippet'][0]['title']` just `['snippet']['title']` — Jonathan, Apr 02 '17 at 14:13

Saumini Navaratnam · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-02T14:22:23.223

3

You are almost there. Try $data['items'][0]['snippet']['title']

json_decode(..., true). true will returns an associative array.
Use [] to access array values.
Anything in {} means, you can access using key, something like ['snippet'] & Anything in [] you can access using index something like [0] or [1]

This may not the good explanation. Hope it is somewhat understandable.

edited Apr 02 '17 at 14:22

answered Apr 02 '17 at 14:12

Saumini Navaratnam

8,439
3
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using the second parameter of `json_decode` as `true` makes the output as object not array. – Alireza Zojaji Apr 02 '17 at 14:15
@AmirZojaji From manual `When TRUE, returned objects will be converted into associative arrays.`. I'm sure `true` will convert into object into array. Please correct me if I'm wrong – Saumini Navaratnam Apr 02 '17 at 14:21
Aaah, awesome! I already knew that adding true would return it as an array. Before I was using `$data['items'][0]['snippet'][0]['title']` and it kept saying unknown index 0, so I guessed it was the first 0 in there. Also many thanks to @AmirZojaji ! – s1h4d0w Apr 02 '17 at 14:21

Alireza Zojaji · Answer 2 · 2017-04-02T14:25:45.073

0

In your code items has an array value, but snippet is a structure not an array. So must use:

echo $data->items[0]->snippet->title;

or if you have second parameter of json_decode as true you can write:

echo $data['items'][0]['snippet']['title'];

edited Apr 02 '17 at 14:25

answered Apr 02 '17 at 14:12

Alireza Zojaji

802
2
13
33

Thanks for the answer, I get it now! – s1h4d0w Apr 02 '17 at 14:27

Parsing data outside brackets in JSON in PHP

2 Answers2