How can PHP handle JSON files with duplicate categories or varying structures efficiently?

When handling JSON files with duplicate categories or varying structures in PHP, one efficient way to manage this is by using the `json_decode()` function with the second parameter set to `true` to decode the JSON data into associative arrays. This allows you to easily access and manipulate the data regardless of its structure or duplicate categories. 

$jsonData = '{"category": "A", "value": 1}, {"category": "B", "value": 2}, {"category": "A", "value": 3}';
$decodedData = json_decode('[' . $jsonData . ']', true);

foreach ($decodedData as $data) {
    echo 'Category: ' . $data['category'] . ', Value: ' . $data['value'] . PHP_EOL;
}

Keywords

PHP JSON duplicate categories varying structures efficiency

Related Questions