[SOLVED] Get info from API/URL

Issue

I have the URL href="https://android.rediptv2.com/ch.php?usercode=5266113827&pid=1&mac=02:00:00:00:00:00&sn=&customer=GOOGLE&lang=eng&cs=amlogic&check=3177926680" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://android.rediptv2.com/ch.php?usercode=5266113827&pid=1&mac=02:00:00:00:00:00&sn=&customer=GOOGLE&lang=eng&cs=amlogic&check=3177926680 which outputs statistics.

For example:

[{"id":"2972","name":"MBC 1","link":"http://46.105.112.116/?watch=TR/mbc1-ar&token=RED_cexVeBNZ8mioQnjmGiYNEg==,1643770076.5266113827&t=1&s=2&p=1&c=BR&r=1351&lb=1","epg":"https://epg.cdnrdn.com/MBC1En.ae-20220201.xml","dvr":"disabled","language":"Arabic","category":"TOP 100","logo":"http://files.rednetcontent.com/chlogo/mbc1.png"},{"id":"1858","name":"MBC 2","link":"http://46.105.112.116/?watch=TN/mbc2-ar&token=RED_cexVeBNZ8mioQnjmGiYNEg==,1643770076.5266113827&t=1&s=2&p=1&c=BR&r=1351&lb=1","epg":"https://epg.cdnrdn.com/MBC2En.ae-20220201.xml","dvr":"disabled","language":"Arabic","category":"TOP 100","logo":"http://files.rednetcontent.com/chlogo/mbc2.png"},{"id":"1859","name":"MBC 3","link":"http://46.105.112.116/?watch=TN/mbc3-ar&token=RED_cexVeBNZ8mioQnjmGiYNEg==,1643770076.5266113827&t=1&s=2&p=1&c=BR&r=1351&lb=1","epg":"https://epg.cdnrdn.com/-20220201.xml","dvr":"disabled","language":"Arabic","category":"TOP 100","logo":"http://files.rednetcontent.com/chlogo/mbc3.png"}]

I want to get the value of link count.

Can anyone help?

I tried to do:

    <?php
    $content =     file_get_contents("https://android.rediptv2.com/ch.php?usercode=5266113827&pid=1&mac=02:00:00:00:00:00&sn=&customer=GOOGLE&lang=eng&cs=amlogic&check=3177926680");

$result  = json_decode($content);

print_r( $result->link );
?>

But it didn't work.

Solution

Put the JSON in an editor and you'll see that it's an array and not an object with the link attribute. This is why you cannot access it directly. You have to loop over the items and then you'll be able to access the link property of one of the items. If you need to access the link by id, as you asked 4 months later, then just create a dictionnary in an array indexed by id and containing just the interesting data you need.

PHP code:

<?php

// The result of the request:
$content = <<<END_OF_STRING
[{"id":"2972","name":"MBC 1","link":"http://46.105.112.116/?watch=TR/mbc1-ar&token=RED_cexVeBNZ8mioQnjmGiYNEg==,1643770076.5266113827&t=1&s=2&p=1&c=BR&r=1351&lb=1","epg":"https://epg.cdnrdn.com/MBC1En.ae-20220201.xml","dvr":"disabled","language":"Arabic","category":"TOP 100","logo":"http://files.rednetcontent.com/chlogo/mbc1.png"},{"id":"1858","name":"MBC 2","link":"http://46.105.112.116/?watch=TN/mbc2-ar&token=RED_cexVeBNZ8mioQnjmGiYNEg==,1643770076.5266113827&t=1&s=2&p=1&c=BR&r=1351&lb=1","epg":"https://epg.cdnrdn.com/MBC2En.ae-20220201.xml","dvr":"disabled","language":"Arabic","category":"TOP 100","logo":"http://files.rednetcontent.com/chlogo/mbc2.png"},{"id":"1859","name":"MBC 3","link":"http://46.105.112.116/?watch=TN/mbc3-ar&token=RED_cexVeBNZ8mioQnjmGiYNEg==,1643770076.5266113827&t=1&s=2&p=1&c=BR&r=1351&lb=1","epg":"https://epg.cdnrdn.com/-20220201.xml","dvr":"disabled","language":"Arabic","category":"TOP 100","logo":"http://files.rednetcontent.com/chlogo/mbc3.png"}]
END_OF_STRING;

$items = json_decode($content);

echo '$items = ' . var_export($items, true) . "\n\n";

// Create a dictionnary to store each link accessible by id.
$links_by_id = [];

// Loop over all items:
foreach ($items as $i => $item) {
    // Show how to access the current link.
    echo "Link $i = $item->link\n";
    
    // Fill the dictionary.
    $links_by_id[(int)$item->id] = $item->link;
}

// To access the first one:
echo "\nFirst link = " . $items[0]->link . "\n";

// Example of access by id:
// The id seems to be a string. It could probably be "1895" or "zhb34" or whatever.
// (If they are only numbers, we could convert the string to an integer).
$id = "1859";
echo "\nAccess with id $id = " . $links_by_id[$id] . "\n";

Test it here: https://onlinephp.io/c/e8ab9

Another important point: You are getting a 403 Forbidden error on the URL you provided. So typically, you will not obtain the JSON you wanted.

As I explained in the comment below, I think that you will not be able to access this page without having a fresh URL with valid query parameters and/or cookies. I imagine you obtained this URL from somewhere and it is no longer valid. This is why you'll probably need to use cURL to visit the website with a session to obtain the fresh URL to the JSON API. Use Google to find some examples of PHP scraping/crawling with session handling. You'll see that depending on the website it can get rather tricky, especially if some JavaScript comes into the game.

Answered By - Patrick Janser

Answer Checked By - Candace Johnson (WPSolving Volunteer)