PHP Filtering

[liamloveslearning]

Hey guys, I was wondering if someone could give me a hand and point me in the right direction. I'm basically working on a music mashup website, but have hit a brick wall at this moment in time.  Here's the scenario:

 

Basically all my data is coming from external API's and feeds, but for this particular section, I want to filter some of the data out in PHP.  Here's a link to an example, just to make it easier to explain:

http://cahamilton.at-uclan.com/fyp/query.php?artist=muse - At the top, you can see the list under the search bar (of other search results), which indicate the other bands "Names" and "MBID's".

http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/?api_key=c7d55f27a911c6a0f77040f18758fc5a&method=artist.search&artist=muse - Here you can see the raw feed data from that search.

 

Basically, what I want to do, is filter through the search data and present only the bands that have "MBID's" in there. Its just a way of filtering out inaccurate data from the site. If any of you are familiar with how Last.FM works, I imagine you know what I mean. Here is the current snippet of code I am working with:

 

	<?php

        // iterate over entries in feed
        foreach ($lastFM_searchXML->results->artistmatches->artist as $search_alternative) {

		// setup variables

		$alternative_mbid = $search_alternative->mbid;

		$alternative_name = $search_alternative->name;
		$alternative_picture = $search_alternative->image[2];
		$alternative_picture2 = str_replace("serve/126","serve/34s",$alternative_picture);
		$alternative_url = 'query.php?artist='.urlencode($alternative_name);

		?>

		<?php 
			echo "
			  <ul>					
				<li>$alternative_name</li>
				<li>$alternative_mbid</li>
			  </ul>
			  <br />" ;?>
                   
            <?php } ?>   

 

I've tried a bunch of functions such as "array_filter" and god knows what else. I just cant seem to get it working. I kind of new to PHP, so I'm still learning lol.  Does anyone have any suggestions? Any help would be much appreciated! Cheers guys!

 

 

[liamloveslearning]

bump

[Pawn]

Am I being a dunce? Won't this work?

 

<?php
if(!empty($alternative_mbid)) {
echo "<ul>               
               <li>$alternative_name</li>
               <li>$alternative_mbid</li>
              </ul>
<br />"; 
}
?>

[liamloveslearning]

No its doesn't unfortunately . Although, it could be on the lines of something..

[liamloveslearning]

I'm just wondering, is that previous statement checking whether the $alternative_mbid is there, then echo'ing it whether its there or not??  Would we need something that says, if its not there, don't echo out the entry (which is the $search_alternative) and if it is, echo the whole entry out? I could be wrong, I'm still working my way round with PHP lol

[Pawn]

The statement is saying "if the variable $alternative_mbid is not empty, do the following".

 

<?php      
// iterate over entries in feed
foreach ($lastFM_searchXML->results->artistmatches->artist as $search_alternative) {
// setup variables
$alternative_mbid = $search_alternative->mbid;       
$alternative_name = $search_alternative->name;
$alternative_picture = $search_alternative->image[2];
$alternative_picture2 = str_replace("serve/126","serve/34s",$alternative_picture);
$alternative_url = 'query.php?artist='.urlencode($alternative_name);
// check for mbid
if(!empty($alternative_mbid)) {
// mbid
echo "<ul>               
    	    <li>$alternative_name</li>
    		<li>$alternative_mbid</li>
    	</ul>
<br />"; 
} else {
// no mbid
echo "This entry was omitted because it had no MBID.";
        }
}
?>

What happens when you run that?

[liamloveslearning]

No luck . Silly question, but is the code treating the Name and MBID as part of a single record? So when we figure out how to filter out the records, its getting rid of the whole record (name and mbid), if no MBID is found?

[Pawn]

Yes, it should suppress the display of the whole entry. I don't know why it doesn't.

[liamloveslearning]

Just a stab in the dark, would something like this work: http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function.array-filter.php ???

 

I tried doing something with it earlier yesterday, but didn't really know what I was doing. Seems slightly hopeful reading through it though. What do you think? Would it be possible with this function?