How to create associative array in Yii2 and convert to JSON? - json

Question

I am using a calendar in my project and I want to pass data from my Event model to view file in JSON format. I tried following but it didn't work and am not able to display the data properly
$events = Event::find()->where(1)->all();
$data = [];
foreach ($events AS $model){
//Testing
$data['title'] = $time->title;
$data['date'] = $model->start_date;
$data['description'] = $time->description;
}
\Yii::$app->response->format = 'json';
echo \yii\helpers\Json::encode($data);
But it only returns one model in that $data array, the final data should be in following format:
[
{"date": "2013-03-19 17:30:00", "type": "meeting", "title": "Test Last Year" },
{ "date": "2013-03-23 17:30:00", "type": "meeting", "title": "Test Next Year" }
]

Answer 1

When you write this:
\Yii::$app->response->format = 'json';
before rendering data, there is no need to do any additional manipulations for converting array to JSON.
You just need to return (not echo) an array:
return $data;
An array will be automatically transformed to JSON.
Also it's better to use yii\web\Response::FORMAT_JSON constant instead of hardcoded string.
Another way of handling that will be using ContentNegotiator filter which has more options, allows setting of multiple actions, etc. Example for controller:
use yii\web\Response;
...
/**
* #inheritdoc
*/
public function behaviors()
{
return [
[
'class' => 'yii\filters\ContentNegotiator',
'only' => ['view', 'index'], // in a controller
// if in a module, use the following IDs for user actions
// 'only' => ['user/view', 'user/index']
'formats' => [
'application/json' => Response::FORMAT_JSON,
],
],
];
}
It can also be configured for whole application.
Update: If you are using it outside of controller, don't set response format. Using Json helper with encode() method should be enough. But there is also one error in your code, you should create new array element like this:
$data = [];
foreach ($events as $model) {
$data[] = [
'title' => $time->title,
'date' => $model->start_date,
'description' => $time->description,
];
}

Answer 2

You can try like this:
$events = Event::find()->select('title,date,description')->where(1)->all()
yii::$app->response->format = yii\web\Response::FORMAT_JSON; // Change response format on the fly
return $events; // return events it will automatically be converted in JSON because of the response format.
Btw you are overwriting $data variable in foreach loop you should do:
$data = [];
foreach ($events AS $model){
//Make a multidimensional array
$data[] = ['time' => $time->title,'date' => $model->start_date,'description' => $time->description];
}
echo \yii\helpers\Json::encode($data);