"JSON is a language-independent data format. It derives from JavaScript, but as of 2016 many
programming languages include code to generate and parse JSON-format data.
The official Internet media type for JSON is application/json.
JSON filenames use the extension .json." From Wikipedia
The json_decode() function takes a JSON-encoded string as its first parameter and parses it into a PHP variable.
Normally, json_decode() will return an object of \stdClass
if the top level item in the JSON object is a dictionary or an indexed array if the
JSON object is an array. It will also return scalar values or NULL for certain scalar values,
such as simple strings, "true", "false", and "null". It also returns NULL on any error.
// Returns an object (The top level item in the JSON string is a JSON dictionary)
$json_string = '{"name": "Toby", "age": 27, "active": true, "skills": ["php", "sql", "json"]}';
$object = json_decode($json_string);
printf('Hello %s, You are %s years old.', $object->name, $object->age);
#> Hello Toby, You are 27 years old.
// Returns an array (The top level item in the JSON string is a JSON array)
$json_string = '["Toby", 27, true, ["php", "sql", "json"]]';
$array = json_decode($json_string);
printf('Hello %s, You are %s years old.', $array[0], $array[1]);