How to handle a large JSON file?

PHP
1

Trying build a storify feed on my site.

This works by pulling a story from the api (see http://dev.storify.com/api/stories) and parsing the returned json.

Now firstly im finding it difficult to get the correct elements from the json.

Here’s my code:


$story = get_file_contents('http://api.storify.com/v1/stories/storify/testimonials');
$data = json_decode($story);

echo $data->content...

Now I’m stuck after the bit about content. The problem is that the json is so huge and without line breaks I find it hard to see the tree structure and not sure what is a branch of which element.

Secondly, is this the best way of handling such a large json file? Couldn’t this potentially eat up huge amounts of memory?

2

You could also decode the JSON into an array if that’s easier for you. Then you can use print_r to get a better structural view of the data.


$data = json_decode($story, true);

echo "<pre>\
";
print_r($data);
echo "</pre>\
";

I’m not sure you’d have to worry too much about memory. It would have to be a very large feed. Just make sure you unset large variables when you’re done with them.


$data = json_decode($story, true);

// Do some stuff with the feed

unset($data);
3

Much more readable and accessible. Thanks! :slight_smile: