Online PHP editor | output for NiWFj

<?php $json = '[ {"title":"The Call of the Wild","author":"Jack London"}, {"title":"Great Expectations","author":"Charles Dickens"}, {"title":"The Voyage of the Beatle","author":"Charles Darwin"} ]'; $array = json_decode($json, true); function searchArrayKeyVal($search, $array) { $results = array(); // search for string in each column foreach ($array as $idx => $obj) { foreach ($obj as $key => $value) { if (stripos($value, $search) !== false) { array_push($results, $obj); break; } } } return $results; } print_r(searchArrayKeyVal('charles', $array)); print_r(searchArrayKeyVal('wild', $array));