PHP json decode

The json_decode function takes a JSON encoded string and converts it into a PHP variable. You may get a JSON string via an API call to a third party, for example. Here is a sample of PHP code with the JSON string hard coded, just for clarity: $json_data = ‘{“Dogs”:1,”Cats”:7,”Elephants”:3,”Cobras”:4,”Bees”:5533}’; $json_object = json_decode($json_data); print_r($json_object); and it outputs: stdClass Object ( [Dogs] => 1 [Cats] => […]