Finding the lowest JSON value, from a JSON response with multiple values

Question

I have this code:

foreach($specs as $spec) {
    if(preg_match('/^(\w+):\s*(.*?)\s\$?(\d*\.?\d*)$/', $spec, $matches)) {
        list(,$tag,$name,$price) = $matches;

        $url = 'https://www.googleapis.com/shopping/search/v1/public/products?country=AU&key=KEY&q=' . urlencode($name);

        $obj = json_decode(file_get_contents($url));
        echo "<a href=\"{$obj->items[0]->product->link}\">{$name}</a> \${$obj->items[0]->product->inventories[0]->price}<br/>";
    }
}

Here's the JSON response (example): http://pastebin.com/VzAG1159

As you can see there's multiple price values in the JSON response. How can I workout (using PHP), the lowest value price?
So if the values are like so:

• 294.00
• 295.00
• 296.00

It will select the 294.00 one. Unfortunately Google don't sort their response in to any logical format, so the cheapest may be half way through or at the end.

I have no idea what function I would use, even count() wouldn't seem to work.

Cheers.

Answer 1

Maybe try one of PHP's sorting functions ?.

If you just need to sort prices you could loop through all the prices and put them in a temporary array that you then sort using asort() .

Answer 2

This will sort $obj->items from lowest to highest price:

$obj = json_decode(file_get_contents($url));

usort($obj->items, function ($a, $b) {
    return $a->product->inventories[0]->price - $b->product->inventories[0]->price;
});

echo "<a href=\"{$obj->items[0]->product->link}\">{$name}</a> \${$obj->items[0]->product->inventories[0]->price}<br/>";

Output:

<a href="http://www.budgetpc.com.au/computer-hardware/desktop-cpus/bx80613i7970.html"></a> $578.13<br/>

With the json data from: http://pastebin.com/VzAG1159