Find matching value from JSON with PHP Curl?

Question

So I've got a page with some jSON data I want to gather into arrays with cURL. To be precise, cURL when used from a PHP program, not from the command line.

I can do that part well with the following codeblock below:

$token = 'my_token_here';
$headers = ['Authorization: Bearer ' . $token];
$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, [
  CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
  CURLINFO_HEADER_OUT => true,
  CURLOPT_URL => 'https://my.infrastructure.com/api/v1/accounts/search',
  CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION => CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1,
  CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER => true,
  CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => $headers
]);

$resp = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);
$data = json_decode($resp);
dd($data);

This will return me a 2D array of all the accounts on the page in the above URL, each array containing an 'account' with variables like ID, name, etc.

The printed output, should I run "print_r($data)", is this:

  Array ( [0] => stdClass Object ( [id] => 130375 [name] => 3Lakes [domain] => 3lakes.instructure.com [distance] => [authentication_provider] => google ) [1] => stdClass Object ( [id] => 130376 [name] => 3Lakes - Parents [domain] => 3lakes.instructure.com [distance] => [authentication_provider] => canvas ) [2] => stdClass Object ( [id] => 126425 [name] => 95 Percent Group [domain] => 95percentgroup.instructure.com [distance] => [authentication_provider] => ) [3] => stdClass Object ( [id] => 129409 [name] => AACM [domain] => aacm.instructure.com [distance] => [authentication_provider] => canvas ) [4] => stdClass Object ( [id] => 129272 [name] => Aalen [domain] => aalen.instructure.com [distance] => [authentication_provider] => canvas ) [5] => stdClass Object ( [id] => 129572 [name] => Aaron Cohn Middle School - MCSD [domain] => mcsd.instructure.com [distance] => [authentication_provider] => ldap ) [6] => stdClass Object ( [id] => 128124 [name] => Abilene Christian University [domain] => acu.instructure.com [distance] => [authentication_provider] => ) [7] => stdClass Object ( [id] => 127204 [name] => Abilene Christian University Online [domain] => acuonline.instructure.com [distance] => [authentication_provider] => ) [8] => stdClass Object ( [id] => 130398 [name] => Abington Public Schools [domain] => abington.instructure.com [distance] => [authentication_provider] => canvas ) [9] => stdClass Object ( [id] => 128797 [name] => Academia Virtual [domain] => canvas.academiavirtual.cr [distance] => [authentication_provider] => ) )

Now, instead of doing all that, I just want to collect a single array, where that array has an ID equal to an ID I give it; i.e if I want to find the ID "15", it returns either the array matching that, or null.

I am not sure how, though. I know that, after the query, I can do PHP to comb the retrieved $data and check each, but I want to do this a bit smoother, presumably in the curl_setopt_array area somehow.

Is what I'm trying to do possible in this way? Any advice?

Can you send a URL something like `https://my.infrastructure.com/api/v1/accounts/15` where the last part is the ID of the account your after. Then the API would be able to return just that data? — Nigel Ren, Jan 24 '19 at 14:24
Does this endpoint have any params? Or are there any other endpoints. The well organized api in most cases has an ability to filter result. If server can not filter the data on it's side, there is no other way. Only filter on your side after getting the curl response. — Viktar Pryshchepa, Jan 24 '19 at 14:24

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 24 '19 at 14:24

Your confusing some things here. cURL has no effect on the data format that is transported because its a library for networking. You already got the solution, looping over the array and restructure the data to your needs. Also you dont have a 2D array but an array of stdClass objects.

So first of all if you want to have an 2d array you should pass true as the 2nd argument to json_decode to make it parse JSON-objects into associative arrays instead of stdClass. Then you use a foreach loop and map your entries by id:

$mappedData = [];
foreach ($data as $item) {
  $mappedData[$item->id] = $item; //Or $mappedData[$item["id"]] if assoc
}

There may be some fancy callback methods using array_map etc. but the foreach loop is the simplest (in my opinion).

Find matching value from JSON with PHP Curl?

1 Answers1