JSON giving unwanted row index number - Active Record - Codeigniter - json

Question

I don't know why when I echo json_encode a query result set I get the number of the result row before each object. I just want to count the number of total rows returns and have them displayed only once in the beginning of the JSON string and then just the rows returns afterwards. I.e. using the following code:
//...active record query
$result = $this->db->get();
$data = array();
$count = 1;
foreach($result->result() as $row)
{
$data['count'] = $count;
$entry = array();
$entry['firstname'] = $row->first_name;
$entry['lastname'] = $row->last_name;
$entry['jobtitle'] = $row->title;
$entry['dept'] = $row->dept_name;
$entry['deptid'] = $row->dept_no;
if($row->emp_no == null)
{
$entry['ismanager'] = 0;
}
else
{
$entry['ismanager'] = 1;
}
$data[] = $entry;
$count++;
}
return $data;
and then json_encode it in the controller, I get:
{"count":35,"0":{"firstname":"Georgi","lastname":"Facello","jobtitle":"Senior Engineer","dept":"Development","deptid":"d005","ismanager":0},"1":{"firstname":"Kirk","lastname":"Facello","jobtitle":"Senior Engineer","dept":"Development","deptid":"d005","ismanager":0},....rest of the query results
What I don't want is the "0" and "1" etc, before the row results. I already have the total count of the returned results so I don't need the individual row numbers.
If someone could kindly help me out I would appreciate it, thanks.

Answer 1

If you try to serialize an array as JSON, it would become something like this:
[elem1, elem2, elem3, ...]
But if that "array" have other fields then it will be serialized as an object:
{"field":value, "0":elem1, "1":elem2, "2":elem3, ...}
Since there's no way to serialize field using the array syntax, and json_encode can not simply discard it, then it uses the object syntax. As stated in the docs:
Note:
When encoding an array, if the keys are not a continuous numeric sequence starting from 0, all keys are encoded as strings, and specified explicitly for each key-value pair.
A possible workaround for this would be separating the count from the list of elements:
$data = array();
$list = array();
$data['list'] = list;
$count = 1;
foreach($result->result() as $row)
{
$data['count'] = $count;
$entry = array();
...
$list[] = $entry;
$count++;
}
That would serialize to something like:
{"count":35,"list":[{"firstname":"Georgi","lastname":"Facello","jobtitle":"Senior Engineer","dept":"Development","deptid":"d005","ismanager":0},{"firstname":"Kirk","lastname":"Facello","jobtitle":"Senior Engineer","dept":"Development","deptid":"d005","ismanager":0},....rest of the query results]}

Answer 2

It looks like you might be using JSON_FORCE_OBJECT on your json_encode which will always make your numerical index show up as a property. You should show your json_encode step in your question.
If you turn option off and go with a default encoding, you will still need to nest your numerically indexed array in its own property or the numerical indexes will show up as properties in order to make valid JSON. For perhaps do something like this when assigning your rows to the object:
$data['records'][] = $entry;