code fragment from a baseball game simulator i developed :
method purpose : extracts box score data in real-time from game cache log
: by joshua lee

php : 

function get_boxscore_data($occuring = false, $game_id = 0)
{
	$data = array();
	
	// if game id not 0, load specified game data
	if($game_id != 0){
		$this->game_data = $this->get_game_data($game_id);
	}
	if( empty($this->game_data) ){ return array(); }
	
	$rosters_data_arr = json_decode($this->game_data['game_roster'], true);
	$pid_team_hash = array();
	foreach(array('home', 'away') as $side){
		$this_team_id = $rosters_data_arr[$side]['id'];
		foreach($rosters_data_arr[$side]['roster'] as $player_datum){
			$pid_team_hash[$player_datum['id']] = $this_team_id;
			$data[$this_team_id][$player_datum['id']] = array(
				'pos' => $player_datum['pos']
			);
			if($player_datum['pos'] == 'P'){
				$this->pitcher_ids[$side] = $player_datum['id'];
			}
		}
	}
	
	// check if gamelog records exist, if not set occuring to false
	$gamelogs_res = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM gamelogs WHERE game_id = {$this->game_data['game_id']}");
	if( mysql_num_rows($gamelogs_res) == 0 || !isset($this->game_data['gamelog']) || $this->action_time == 0 ){
		$occuring = false;
	}
	
	// use game logs data
	if($occuring){

		for($a = 0; $a <= $this->action_time; $a++){
			if( isset($this->game_data['gamelog'][$a]) ){
				$this_play_stats = json_decode($this->game_data['gamelog'][$a]['gamelog_stats'], true);
				if( !empty($this_play_stats) ){
					foreach($this_play_stats as $pid => $player_datum){
						foreach($player_datum as $stat => $value){
							$pid_team_id = $pid_team_hash[$pid];
							if( !isset($data[$pid_team_id][$pid][$stat]) ){
								$data[$pid_team_id][$pid][$stat] = 0;
							}
							$data[$pid_team_id][$pid][$stat] += $value;
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
		
	// use game data record
	} else {
		
		$game_stats = json_decode($this->game_data['game_stats'], true);
		foreach($game_stats as $pid => $player_datum){
			$pid_team_id = $pid_team_hash[$pid];
			$data[$pid_team_id][$pid] = $player_datum;
		}
	}
	
	return $data;
}