JQuery Serialized array to PHP array Nesttable jscript

Question

I found the following code online. And I would love to use it in my own projects.

http://dbushell.github.io/Nestable/

This draggable jquery generated tree structure generates a serialized array. To for what seems to me this is a serialized javascript array.

[{"id":1,"children":[{"id":3}]},{"id":2,"children":[{"id":4},{"id":9,"children":[{"id":5,"children":[{"id":6},{"id":7},{"id":8}]}]}]},{"id":11},{"id":12,"children":[{"id":10}]}]

For what I could find I should use parse_str and that should do it.

But to no avail. The array generated is empty.

I tried the following test code :

   <?php

    $Str = '[{"id":1},{"id":2,"children":[{"id":3},{"id":4},{"id":5,"children":[{"id":6},{"id":7},{"id":8}]},{"id":9},{"id":10}]},{"id":11},{"id":12}]';

    parse_str($Str, $values);

    print_r($values);

    ?>

I hope that anyone sees what I am overlooking.

Thanks in advance!

Answer!

What I have overlooked is that this is not a Javascript Serialized array but rather a JSON encoded string.

As suggested below I should use JSON decode.
$Str = json_decode('[{"id":1},{"id":2,"children":[{"id":3},{"id":4},{"id":5,"children":[{"id":6},{"id":7},{"id":8}]},{"id":9},{"id":10}]},{"id":11},{"id":12}]');
This will deliver the result as shown below.

IF I want to use the result as an array instead of what supplied I should use the following function to convert the objects to a valid array:
function toArray($obj){
    if (is_object($obj)) $obj = (array)$obj;
    if (is_array($obj)) {
        $new = array();
        foreach ($obj as $key => $val) {
            $new[$key] = toArray($val);
        }
    } else {
        $new = $obj;
    }

    return $new;
}

$Str = toArray($Str);
(* this I copied from : How do I convert an object to an array? *)

don't use like that. it will not follow standards for json parsing — Raghavendra
– Raghavendra, Commented Aug 12, 2015 at 11:20

RiggsFolly · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-12 11:29:54Z

No you should use json_decode() like this

<?php

    $Str = '[{"id":1},{"id":2,"children":[{"id":3},{"id":4},{"id":5,"children":[{"id":6},{"id":7},{"id":8}]},{"id":9},{"id":10}]},{"id":11},{"id":12}]';

    $php_array = json_decode($Str);

    // and just in case there is an error while decoding
    if ( json_last_error() > 0 ) {
        echo json_last_error_msg();
    }

    print_r($php_array);

?>

Which will generate the output:

Array
(
    [0] => stdClass Object
        (
            [id] => 1
        )

    [1] => stdClass Object
        (
            [id] => 2
            [children] => Array
                (
                    [0] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [id] => 3
                        )

                    [1] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [id] => 4
                        )

                    [2] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [id] => 5
                            [children] => Array
                                (
                                    [0] => stdClass Object
                                        (
                                            [id] => 6
                                        )

                                    [1] => stdClass Object
                                        (
                                            [id] => 7
                                        )

                                    [2] => stdClass Object
                                        (
                                            [id] => 8
                                        )

                                )

                        )

                    [3] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [id] => 9
                        )

                    [4] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [id] => 10
                        )

                )

        )

    [2] => stdClass Object
        (
            [id] => 11
        )

    [3] => stdClass Object
        (
            [id] => 12
        )

)

Or if you want the whole dataset returned as an array rather than the objects that exist in the original data you can add the second parameter to json_decode($Str, true) and it will all be in arrays:

<?php

    $Str = '[{"id":1},{"id":2,"children":[{"id":3},{"id":4},{"id":5,"children":[{"id":6},{"id":7},{"id":8}]},{"id":9},{"id":10}]},{"id":11},{"id":12}]';

    $php_array = json_decode($Str, true);

    // and just in case there is an error while decoding
    if ( json_last_error() > 0 ) {
        echo json_last_error_msg();
    }

    print_r($php_array);

?>

Giving this result :

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 1
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [id] => 2
            [children] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => 3
                        )

                    [1] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => 4
                        )

                    [2] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => 5
                            [children] => Array
                                (
                                    [0] => Array
                                        (
                                            [id] => 6
                                        )

                                    [1] => Array
                                        (
                                            [id] => 7
                                        )

                                    [2] => Array
                                        (
                                            [id] => 8
                                        )

                                )

                        )

                    [3] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => 9
                        )

                    [4] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => 10
                        )

                )

        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [id] => 11
        )

    [3] => Array
        (
            [id] => 12
        )

)

How do I convert this into a normal array? I could write a function to do this. But is there any readily available code to do this?
The json_decode does just that, look at the output? Or what do you mean by a normal array
Does the existance of class objects in the result bother you?
Well If I try to use the result as an array I get: ( ! ) Catchable fatal error: Object of class stdClass could not be converted to string in C:\wamp\www\test\draggable_tree\simple\test2.php on line 8
So also you need to learn how to address an array of objects i.e. $phpArray[1]->childern[2]->id or use the second parameter to make it all an array

Narendrasingh Sisodia · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-12 11:19:50Z

1

Simply use json_decode

print_r(json_decode($Str, true));

answered Aug 12, 2015 at 11:19

Narendrasingh Sisodia

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