PHP not converting JSON using 'json_decode()'

Question

I have a very simple bit of code

$pc1 = $_POST['post_code1'];
$pc2 = $_POST['post_code2'];
$url = "http://maps.google.com/maps/nav?q=from:".$pc1."%20to:".$pc2;
$url_data = file_get_contents($url);
$json_data = json_decode($url_data);
var_dump($json_data);

$url_data is full of juicy json stuff but $json_data returns NULL. Does anyone have an idea why?

How deep is it? PHP doc: "NULL is returned if the json cannot be decoded or if the encoded data is deeper than the recursion limit." The recursion limit is 512 by default. — GolezTrol, Apr 25 '12 at 15:52
`var_dump($url_data)`? Maybe [fopen wrappers](http://www.php.net/manual/en/filesystem.configuration.php#ini.allow-url-fopen) is disabled? — AndrewR, Apr 25 '12 at 15:53

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:12

3

I found the following worked after find a number of people with similar problems

$json_data = json_decode(utf8_encode($url_data),true);

source

edited May 23 '17 at 12:12

Community

1
1

answered Apr 25 '12 at 15:55

Robert Johnstone

5,431
12
58
88

2

This is correct, because `file_get_contents` does so byte-for-byte and not character-for-character. – Niet the Dark Absol Apr 25 '12 at 15:58

PHP not converting JSON using 'json_decode()'

1 Answers1

Linked