How to get JSON data with PHP

Question

I am new with PHP and I am just trying to get one value from a JSON dictionary. This seems really simple (at least to me) but I am having trouble with it. I looked at the PHP documentation for JSON_decode and I also looked at "Parsing JSON data from a remote server" but that didn't do what I wanted. It returned the dictionary item I wanted as 0 then just spit out the JSON file. Then I looked at "get data from JSON with php" and that just returns nothing.

JSON Example

{ 
  "ask": 344.28,
  "bid": 343.89,
  "last": 343.97
}

First Try

$jsoncontent=file_get_contents("https://api.bitcoinaverage.com/ticker/global/USD");`
$priceusd=json_decode($json-content);

$lastusd=$priceusd['last'];

echo "Decoded JSON:\n";
echo "$priceusd\n";
echo "Raw JSON:\n";
echo "$jsoncontent\n";

Second Try

$result=file_get_contents("https://api.bitcoinaverage.com/ticker/global/USD");
 $result = iconv('UTF-16', 'UTF-8', $result);
 $json = json_decode($result);

 echo $json->last;

All I want is the value of one of the dictionary items in JSON at a URL.

Thanks!

Could you provide an example structure of the JSON you are working with? — Stacker-flow, Nov 09 '14 at 05:17
`{ "ask": 344.28, "bid": 343.89, "last": 343.97, }` I want to echo the last value. — Jake, Nov 09 '14 at 05:21
@Jake you don't need an `iconv()` in there, just straight up decode it. check out barmar's answer below — Kevin, Nov 09 '14 at 05:32
This line `$priceusd=json_decode($json-content);` must be like: `$priceusd=json_decode($jsoncontent);` Variable name doesnt have "-" in it. — Mekey Salaria, May 13 '15 at 05:17

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 09 '14 at 05:26

Assuming $data contains what was returned from the server, you do:

$object = json_decode($data);
$last = $object->last;

or:

$array = json_decode($data, true);
$last = $array['last'];

When you leave out the second argument to json_decode, it returns an object, and you access the part you want as an object property. If you give the second argument true, it returns an associative array, and you access the element using array notation.

How to get JSON data with PHP

1 Answers1