Formatting API Results to an Array?

I have an API that I am using that is essentially returning data you would expect to see in array, but in a format where it is one long string of information. It looks a bit like this:

{"results":[{"NodeID":1,"Icon":"9.gif ","DisplayName":"Device 1"},{"NodeID":2,"Icon":"9.gif ","DisplayName":"Device 2"},{"NodeID":3,"Icon":"9.gif ","DisplayName":"Device3"}]}

I have a site written in basic php and is using "file_get_contents" with a formatted url to get this info. Is there any way that I can format this string into an array with alternating values for NodeID, Icon, and DisplayName? Essentially something like this for the above string:

"1, 9.gif, Device1, 2, 9.gif, Device2, 3, 9.gif, Device3"

Any ideas? Thank you in advance!

 

I'm pretty sure that's not "a long string of information" but a JSON-encoded result.

Just do a $result = json_decode($data,true); to get an associative array for the values (you'll then access it something like $result[0][NodeID] and so forth.

 

That is indeed JSON encoded data, it makes a lot more sense if you format it.

{
	"results"  :  [
		{
			"NodeID" : 1,
			"Icon" : "9.gif ",
			"DisplayName" : "Device 1"
		}, {
			"NodeID" : 2,
			"Icon" : "9.gif ",
			"DisplayName" : "Device 2"
		},{
			"NodeID" : 3,
			"Icon" : "9.gif ",
			"DisplayName" : "Device3"
		}
	]
}

Code (markup):

and a json_decode of it:
http://php.net/manual/en/function.json-decode.php

Would give you this array structure:

stdClass Object
(
    [results] => Array
        (
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [NodeID] => 1
                    [Icon] => 9.gif 
                    [DisplayName] => Device 1
                )

            [1] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [NodeID] => 2
                    [Icon] => 9.gif 
                    [DisplayName] => Device 2
                )

            [2] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [NodeID] => 3
                    [Icon] => 9.gif 
                    [DisplayName] => Device3
                )

        )

)

Code (markup):

So for example if you did:

$test = json_decode($jsonString);

Where $jsonString contained that data from your post, $test['results'][2]['DisplayName'] would be 'Device 3'.