Determine an empty array in php

Question

Hello I am developing an admin backend for an android app for a restaurant. I need to list all food items the restaurant offers based on their categories. The trouble is there can be some categories which doesn't have any item listed under it, and if such a category is encountered the php back end is supposed to return just an empty list but the category name should be there.

My current code so far

try
    {
        $query = "SELECT category FROM category";       
        $result= $DBH->query($query);
        while($row = $result->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC))
        {
            $cat    = $row['category'];
            $query1 = "SELECT * FROM item WHERE catagory='$cat'";       
            $value  = $DBH->query($query1);
            $row1   = $value->fetch(PDO::FETCH_OBJ);
            $main   = array('data'=>array($row1));
            echo json_encode($main);
        }

        $result->closeCursor();         //Close database connection free resources
        $DBH = null;
    }
    catch(PDOException $e){
        print $e->getMessage ();
        die();
    }

Gives an output like this

{"data":[{"id":"2","name":"Rice","price":"120","description":"Plain Rice","image":"6990_abstract-photo-2.jpg","time":"12 mins","catagory":"Lunch","subcat":""}]}
{"data":[{"id":"4","name":"Dal","price":"5","description":"dadadad","image":"","time":"20 mins","catagory":"Dinner","subcat":""}]}
{"data":[false]}

My problem is the last output where it shows {"data":[false]} should be like this {"data":["catagory":"Soup"]} To do that I would need to find out when the $main variable is empty and then manually add the category to it.

Any ideas or work around to this situation?

Can't you just check if $main is empty and then added that default value before calling json_eoncode()? Really seems straightforward to me. I'm not sure what the problem is. — John Conde
– John Conde, Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 19:52
I tried using if(empty($main)) it always returns false even though the 3rd time it is empty — Rick Roy
– Rick Roy, Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 19:52
You should do var_dump() of $main and see what it looks like. It's obviously not what you think. — John Conde
– John Conde, Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 19:54
var_dump() shows that the 3rd time the value is array(1) { ["data"]=> array(1) { [0]=> bool(false) } } Can you suggest how I can use this to code a logic to attend my needs? — Rick Roy
– Rick Roy, Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 19:57

Nebojsa Susic · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-19 20:10:03Z

1

you want this modification..........

if ($row1   = $value->fetch(PDO::FETCH_OBJ)){
  $main   = array('data'=>array($row1));
  echo json_encode($main);
}else{
  echo '{"data":["catagory":"' . $row['category'] . '"]}';
}

edited Oct 19, 2014 at 20:10

answered Oct 19, 2014 at 20:03

Nebojsa Susic

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Comments

geoandri · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-19 20:03:10Z

0

You problem stems from the fact that you have a 'soup' category but you don't have any items belonging to the soup category. You should add a condition for empty result and change the echoing array accordingly.

  if (empty($row1))
  {
   $main   = array('data'=>array('category'=>$cat));
  }
   else 
  {
    $main   = array('data'=>array($row1));
  }

edited Oct 19, 2014 at 20:03

answered Oct 19, 2014 at 19:57

geoandri

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1 Comment

Rick Roy Over a year ago

I am trying to actually do that but I am stumped as I can't detect when it is being empty. If you could give an example of condition to find out the empty result it would be great

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