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WordPress How to Build a WordPress Plugin Connecting WordPress Plugins with 3rd Party APIs Getting and Storing JSON Code Challenge

suyash patankar
suyash patankar
2,310 Points

Fatal error: Cannot use object of type WP_Error as array

I am getting error "Fatal error: Cannot use object of type WP_Error as array in D:\xampp\htdocs\wordpress\wp-content\plugins\wptreehouse-badges\wptreehouse-badges.php on line 92"

the code is as follows

function wptreehouse_badges_get_profile($wptreehouse_username) { $json_feed_url= 'http://teamtreehouse.com' . $wptreehouse_username .'json'; $args = array('timeout'=> 120);

      $json_feed = wp_remote_get($json_feed_url, $args);

      $wptreehouse_profile = json_decode($json_feed['body']); //THIS IS LINE 92

      return $wptreehouse_profile; //to reutrn body data and not the array data in json file.

}

1 Answer

Luke Towers
Luke Towers
18,572 Points

You are attempting to access the body array element of the $json_feed variable. However, when this code is being run, $json_feed is not an array, it is an object of type WP_Error. Thus, the error message saying that it can't use an object with a type of WP_Error as an array, which indicates to you that $json_feed is not what you expected it to be.

In this case, we can assume that given the $json_feed_url and $args provided, wp_remote_get() returned an object (class) of type WP_Error. I would look into why wp_remote_get() returned a WP_Error instance and not an array as you were expecting; perhaps debug the values of $json_feed_url and $args that were provided to wp_remote_get() when it was called.

Additionally, you should have some form of a sanity check in your code, because if you look at the documentation for wp_remote_get(), it states that it returns either an array or an instance of WP_Error. You could add a really lazy check in the form of verifying that the $json_feed variable is an array and that it has a body element specified as shown below.

<?php 
// Attempt to get the JSON feed
$json_feed = wp_remote_get($json_feed_url, $args);

// Verify that the JSON feed returned something useful
if (is_array($json_feed) && !empty($json_feed['body'])) {
   $wptreehouse_profile = json_decode($json_feed['body']);
   return $wptreehouse_profile;
} else {
   return false; // wp_remote_get failed somehow
}