John Davidson

Message:

I want to use a json file as a kind of database. In it I have categorized file names and now I want to read them via PHP.

{

"settings": {

  "prefix": "pix",

  "folder": "files/jpg",

  "delimiter": "-",

  "extension": "jpg"

},

"category": {

  "art": {

    "painting": {

      "1999": ["paint1","paint2","paint3"],

      "2000": ["paint4","paint5"]

    },

    "drawing": {

      "1995": ["sketch1","sketch2","sketch3"],

      "2012": ["sketch4","sketch5"]

    }

  },

  "project": {

    "website": {

      "2016": ["web1","web2","web3"]

    }

  }

}

}

This is how far I got:

$db = json_decode(file_get_contents("json/_database.json"), true);

$test1 = $db["category"]["art"]["painting"]["2000"];

var_dump($test1);

I would like to get the following data:

1. get all category key names as an array: "art", "project"


2. get all subcategory key names of 'art' as an array: "painting", "drawing"


3. get all values from subcategory 'drawing' in the year 1995 as an array: "sketch1", "sketch2", "sketch3"

I know there are already questions about such problems, but I could not apply the answers to my case. I would be grateful for examples of syntax notation, which I can then adapt to other cases.

---

My Answer:
To achieve the desired results, you can use the following PHP code:

php
$db = json_decode(file_get_contents("json/_database.json"), true);

// Get all category key names as an array
$categoryKeys = array_keys($db["category"]);
var_dump($categoryKeys);

// Get all subcategory key names of 'art' as an array
$subcategoryKeys = array_keys($db["category"]["art"]);
var_dump($subcategoryKeys);

// Get all values from subcategory 'drawing' in the year 1995 as an array
$values = $db["category"]["art"]["drawing"]["1995"];
var_dump($values);


This code will output the following:

1. Array containing category key names: ["art", "project"]
2. Array containing subcategory key names of 'art': ["painting", "drawing"]
3. Array containing values from subcategory 'drawing' in the year 1995: ["sketch1", "sketch2", "sketch3"]

You can modify and adapt this code to access other data in your nested JSON file.