I want to parse the JSON string below into an associative array, sort it by the 'age' field and output the sorted array as an HTML table:
<?
$json='[{"name": "jesse","age": 25},{"name": "jason","age": 29},{"name": "johnson","age": 24}]';
?>
Should I use some sort of json_decode to print the individual values and use an existing sorting function in php?
Yes, the only way (I know of) is to use:
$array = json_decode( $json);
$array = array_map( $array, 'objectToArray');
// Or rather:
$array = json_decode( $json, true);
// And sort
sort( $array);
Php offers many array sorting functions, just browse manual. I also borrowed objectToArray from this page.
I guess you will want to sort by age (or name), you should probably use usort:
function cmp( $a, $b){
if( !isset( $a['age']) && !isset( $b['age'])){
return 0;
}
if( !isset( $a['age'])){
return -1;
}
if( !isset( $b['age'])){
return 1;
}
if( $a['age'] == $b['age']){
return 0;
}
return (($a['age'] > $b['age']) ? 1 : -1);
}
usort( $array, 'cmp');
you can json_decode the string which will give you a php array of associate arrays. From there you can use php 's built in sort to sort on the key you want.
