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I have the following array in php

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 0
            [name] => name1
            [short_name] => n1
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [id] => 2
            [name] => name2
            [short_name] => n2
        )
)

I want the json to be in the following format

[{"id":0, "name":"name1", "short_name":"n1"},{"id":2, "name":"name2", "short_name":"n2"}]

how do i achieve it in php? when i use json_encode i am getting the following instead,

{
     0:{"id":0, "name":"name1", "short_name":"n1"},
     2:{"id":2, "name":"name2", "short_name":"n2"}
}

which is an object instead of an array,

EDIT:

I want to use the following array with knockout.js 

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 0
            [name] => name1
            [short_name] => n1
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [id] => 2
            [name] => name2
            [short_name] => n2
        )
)

and i am unable to loop.

Edit:

after your help i figured out my array wasn't sequential which resulted in an object instead of an array,

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 0
            [name] => name1
            [short_name] => n1
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [id] => 2
            [name] => name2
            [short_name] => n2
        )
)

the following works,

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 0
            [name] => name1
            [short_name] => n1
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [id] => 2
            [name] => name2
            [short_name] => n2
        )
)

I could achieve it finally here http://jsfiddle.net/vZdJz/4/

Thanks for all your help guys!!!

share|improve this question
6  
You want the json to be invalid? – Esailija Jun 25 '12 at 19:08
["id":0, "name":"name1", "short_name":"n1"] is not valid JSON. Neither is {0:. – cdhowie Jun 25 '12 at 19:09
Want you want is neither an array in php nor a json in javascript – Blaster Jun 25 '12 at 19:09
but [["id":0, "name":"name1", "short_name":"n1"],["id":1, "name":"name2", "short_name":"n2"]] should be theorically possible according to the norm, no ? – dystroy Jun 25 '12 at 19:10
@dystroy theoretically, if you invent a new data encoding language – Juan Mendes Jun 25 '12 at 19:12
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2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Array in JSON are indexed array only, so the structure you're trying to get is not valid Json/Javascript.

PHP Associatives array are objects in JSON, so unless you don't need the index, you can't do such conversions.

If you want to get such structure you can do:

$indexedOnly = array();

foreach ($associative as $row) {
    $indexedOnly[] = array_values($row);
}

json_encode($indexedOnly);

Will returns something like:

[
     [0, "name1", "n1"],
     [1, "name2", "n2"],
]
share|improve this answer
Thanks for giving me the clue of indexed array :) the problem was i indexed it in such a way that the id was also the id of the array instead of a sequential id and json_encode didn't pick it up as an array but as in object instead because the array wasn't sequential its fixed now thanks for all your help guys :) – peplamb Jun 25 '12 at 19:30
Not true. Some libraries do encode associative arrays as arrays with index as one of element properties. – Gustavo Pinent Jun 18 at 1:11
up vote 1 down vote

The format you want is not a valid JSON, because there are no associative arrays in JavaScript. I tried to encode the same array as you and it gave me:

[
    {"id":0,"name":"name1","short_name":"n2"},
    {"id":1,"name":"name2","short_name":"n2"}
]

which is correct. (PHP 5.3.10)

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