Decode part of JSON, but without producing array

Question

So I have a very big JSON string that represents a multidimensional array with 255 entries, each entry, being an array with 255 other entries, liek this:

0 => array(0, 1, ..., 255),
1 => array(0, 1, ..., 255),

...
255 => array(0, 1, ..., 255),

(the only difference is that the values from the 2nd level are strings made out of 2-3 characters in my case)

Could I retrieve a certain value from this encoded string based on a key, but without actually decoding it to an array?

for example, I may want to get $arr[37][78];

To do this currently I'd have to:

$arr = json_decode($string);
$value = $arr[37][78];

Which I'd like to avoid because the decoded string takes a huge amount of memory as an array...

Is it really that huge when the items only contain 3 chars? — PeeHaa
– PeeHaa, Commented Aug 12, 2012 at 0:36
It's theoretically possible, but I wouldn't want to go through that exercise. Like pixeline said, regex, substring or manual parsing (ie, find the 37*255th opening bracket, etc. Ugly. Agree with Petra, you are looking at like < 200KB by my quick estimation. — kakridge
– kakridge, Commented Aug 12, 2012 at 0:47

pixeline · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-12 00:36:55Z

1

No, not based on a key. Since at the point that you receive it it's a string, your only option is regex or substr(), using indexes.

answered Aug 12, 2012 at 0:36

pixeline

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