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up vote 11 down vote favorite
2

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 to JSON encode it as a JSON array, producing a string like the following:

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

But when I call json_encode on this array, I get the following:

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

which is an object instead of an array.

How can I get json_encode to encode my array as an array, instead?

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
    
["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
    
@dystroy No. But [{"id":0, "name":"name1", "short_name":"n1"},{"id":1, "name":"name2", "short_name":"n2"}] would be valid. –  cdhowie Jun 25 '12 at 19:12

4 Answers 4

up vote 21 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 '13 at 1:11
up vote 3 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)

share|improve this answer
up vote 2 down vote

You are observing this behaviour because your array is not sequential - it has keys 0 and 2, but doesn't have 1 as a key.

Just having numeric indexes isn't enough. json_encode will only encode your PHP array as a JSON array if your PHP array is sequential - that is, if its keys are 0, 1, 2, 3, ...

You can reindex your array sequentially using the array_values function to get the behaviour you want. For example, the code below works successfully in your use case:

echo json_encode(array_values($input)).
share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

to get an assoiative array from json (wich is an object) you must specify the second parameter as TRUE for json_decode function

see http://php.net/json_decode

i hop this will help :)

share|improve this answer

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