How to convert a JSON string into an array (PHP)?

Question

using the below code for decoding json

$categories = json_decode($data);
$categories = $categories->data;

where i get this

Answer 1

This looks like a JSON string. You can use json_decode() to convert it into a PHP variable, e.g.

$obj = json_decode($json);
print_r($obj->categories); // array of StdClass objects

You can access and iterate the categories array regularly

echo $obj->categories[0]->name; // Utilities
echo $obj->categories[1]->name; // Productivity
echo $obj->categories[2]->name; // Music

To convert the StdClass objects to arrays, you could do

$categories = array();
foreach (json_decode($json)->categories as $category) {
    $categories[] = (array) $category;
}
print_r($categories);

You could also do it with a lambda function and array_map:

// Before PHP5.3
$categories = array_map(
    create_function('$el', 'return (array) $el;'), 
    json_decode($json)->categories);

// After PHP5.3
$categories = array_map(
    function($el) { return (array) $el; }, 
    json_decode($json)->categories);