无法从多维数组中获取字符串以写入PHP（Laravel 5.2）中的JSON文件-只是空引号

Question

I have a multi-dimensional array which is from decoded JSON. I can move through the array and echo out each element perfectly fine.

However I cannot get my Array element to over write an element in the JSON file.

The interesting thing is that I can echo it out, it is of type string and I can write a hard-coded string between "quotes" to the JSON file.

When I try to write to the file the existing JSON value is deleted and left as a pair of blank quotes "". Not the whole file. Just the exact element I'm targeting.

I'm thinking it might have to do with scope of the arrays?

        foreach($data['Main'] as $sceneItem){
      $count = 0;
      //iterate over each element in every sceneItem looking for a matching field
      if(isset($sceneItem['Values'])){
        if(in_array($sceneItem['Values'], $template_fields)){
          //dd($user_input[$sceneItem['Values']]); //outputs desired string I'd like to put in JSON

          $data['Main'][$count]['Values'] = $user_input[$sceneItem['Values']];
          $count++;

       }
      }
    }

Sample of JSON:

{
 "Header": {
  "Project": "SchhhhriptTitle.aep"
 },
 "Main": [
  {
   "Title": "Text",
   "Comp": "Scene 1 - Introduction",
   "CompID": 40,
   "Name": "Company name ",
   "Layer": 1,
   "Values": "sc1txt2",
   "Font": "basictitlefont",
   "FontSize": 154,
   "FillColor": [
    0.95686000585556,
    0.95686000585556,
    0.95686000585556
   ]
  },
  {
   "Title": "Text",
   "Comp": "Scene 1 - Introduction",
   "CompID": 40,
   "Name": "Introducing",
   "Layer": 3,
   "Values": "sc1txt1",
   "Font": "basictitlefont",
   "FontSize": 154,
   "FillColor": [
    0.95686000585556,
    0.95686000585556,
    0.95686000585556
   ]
  },

Answer 1

I think you should use the php foreach using a reference , as in:

foreach($data['Main'] as &$sceneItem){

that way you don't need to have the $count variable at all (which you reset at every iteration, not just at the beginning). Doing that, instead of:

$data['Main'][$count]['Values'] = $user_input[$sceneItem['Values']];

you can have

$sceneItem['Values'] = $user_input[$sceneItem['Values']];