php - json_decode returning NULL

Asked Mar 26 '16 at 10:44

Active Mar 26 '16 at 12:03

Viewed 60 times

I am finding it hard to debug why json_decode is returning null.

Here is a var dump of the JSON I am trying to decode:

string(82) " {"total_goals":83,"total_games":30,"average_goals":"2.77"} "

Which is valid JSON according to JSONLint.

var_dump($homeJSON);  // Returns above 
$json = json_decode($homeJSON); // Decode the json
var_dump($json); // Returns NULL

$homeJSON is reading file_get_contents(url) if that makes a difference.

JSON is coming from a file on another site:

$post_data = json_encode(array('total_goals' => $totalgoals, 'total_games' =>     $totalgames, 'average_goals' => $average_goals));

echo $post_data;

I have checked the BOM and removed it, and I am still getting NULL

edited Mar 26 '16 at 12:03

asked Mar 26 '16 at 10:44

CMS

what is the content of your JSON file? – ameenulla0007 Mar 26 '16 at 10:47
2

My guess it is breaks on [the leading BOM](https://hexdump.pieterhordijk.com/b5faf8fb7d13fba709a3156a1901a3c241ae46a0/bom) – PeeHaa Mar 26 '16 at 10:47
@PeeHaa - can I just use trim() to remove this? – CMS Mar 26 '16 at 10:50
Where is the json coming from? – PeeHaa Mar 26 '16 at 10:54
Although [the close dupe is a dupe](https://3v4l.org/ULrdT) imo you should really fix the source to not do stupid shit like sending a BOM character in the first place. – PeeHaa Mar 26 '16 at 10:58
@PeeHaa How do I avoid sending a BOM character? – CMS Mar 26 '16 at 11:06
My educated guess is that your texteditor / IDE saves files with the BOM. You will have to save files as utf8 without bom – PeeHaa Mar 26 '16 at 11:07
@PeeHaa - its saved as UTF-8 on TextWrangler which is no BOM – CMS Mar 26 '16 at 11:11
I removed the BOM and still getting NULL – CMS Mar 26 '16 at 11:16

0 Answers0