PHP - Multidimensional Array to Json

Question

This is a bit of a reverse engineering question, but I want to know how to write in PHP a proper multidimensional array in PHP that outputs the following javascript array.

 [
 {
 "key": "Basic Planners",
 "values": [{"x": "YourPhone","y": 150}, 
 {"x": "Universe X3","y": 300},
 {"x": "ePhone 74s","y": 1500}, 
 {"x": "NextUs","y": 50}, 
 {"x": "Humanoid","y": 500
 }]
 }, {
 "key": "No-Namers",
 "values": [{"x": "YourPhone","y": 300}, 
 {"x": "Universe X3","y": 250}, 
 {"x": "ePhone 74s","y": 400}, 
 {"x": "NextUs","y": 150}, 
 {"x": "Humanoid","y": 900}]
 }, {
 "key": "Feature Followers",
 "values": [{"x": "YourPhone","y": 350}, 
 {"x": "Universe X3","y": 900}, 
 {"x": "ePhone 74s","y": 100}, 
 {"x": "NextUs","y": 500}, 
 {"x": "Humanoid","y": 250}]
 }, {
 "key": "Hipsters & Elites",
 "values": [{"x": "YourPhone","y": 200}, 
 {"x": "Universe X3","y": 350}, 
 {"x": "ePhone 74s","y": 50}, 
 {"x": "NextUs","y": 800}, 
 {"x": "Humanoid","y": 100}]
 }
 ]

• James: It's a little amusing that instead of having a key called "Basic Planners" you have a key called "key" with a value of "Basic Planners". It would make the structure a lot more compact to use {"Basic Planners": [{"x":...},...], "Feature Followers":[...] etc
• dvoutt: Good point. I was using the format for an nvd3.js graph, tested without that key statement and it works so I'll drop that from the php (data coming in that way).

Answer 1

The following code should do the trick

$phpArray = array(
 array(
 'key' => 'Basic Planners',
 'values'=> array(
 array('x' => 'YourPhone', 'y' => 150),
 array('x' => 'Universe X3', 'y' => 300),
 array('x' => 'ePhone 74s', 'y' => 1500),
 array('x' => 'NextUs', 'y' => 50),
 array('x' => 'Humanoid', 'y' => 500),
 )
 ),
 /* and so on... */
);
echo json_encode($phpArray);

• dvoutt: Thanks dude! I kept getting close but screwing up. I'm more of a designer, CSS and jQuery guy than server side.

Answer 2

PHP Manual

For the JSON Objects use array("key" => value, ...)

for the JSON Arrays use array(arg0, arg1, arg2, ...)

Then just nest these various groupings. This should output the desired JSON.