How to convert JSON string to array

Question

If you pass the JSON in your post to json_decode, it will fail. Valid JSON strings have quoted keys:

json_decode('{foo:"bar"}');         // this fails
json_decode('{"foo":"bar"}', true); // returns array("foo" => "bar")
json_decode('{"foo":"bar"}');       // returns an object, not an array.

Try this:

$data = json_decode($your_json_string, TRUE);

the second parameter will make decoded json string into an associative arrays.

If you are getting the JSON string from the form using $_REQUEST, $_GET, or $_POST the you will need to use the function html_entity_decode(). I didn't realize this until I did a var_dump of what was in the request vs. what I copied into and echo statement and noticed the request string was much larger.

Correct Way:

$jsonText = $_REQUEST['myJSON'];
$decodedText = html_entity_decode($jsonText);
$myArray = json_decode($decodedText, true);

With Errors:

$jsonText = $_REQUEST['myJSON'];
$myArray = json_decode($jsonText, true);
echo json_last_error(); //Returns 4 - Syntax error;

Use json_decode($json_string, TRUE) function to convert the JSON object to an array.

Example:

$json_string   = '{"a":1,"b":2,"c":3,"d":4,"e":5}';

$my_array_data = json_decode($json_string, TRUE);

NOTE: The second parameter will convert decoded JSON string into an associative array.

===========

Output:

var_dump($my_array_data);

array(5) {

    ["a"] => int(1)
    ["b"] => int(2)
    ["c"] => int(3)
    ["d"] => int(4)
    ["e"] => int(5)
}

If you are getting json string from URL using file_get_contents, then follow the steps:

$url = "http://localhost/rest/users";  //The url from where you are getting the contents
$response = (file_get_contents($url)); //Converting in json string
 $n = strpos($response, "[");
$response = substr_replace($response,"",0,$n+1);
$response = substr_replace($response, "" , -1,1);
print_r(json_decode($response,true));