What are some best practices for handling JSON data in PHP?

When handling JSON data in PHP, it is important to properly encode and decode the data to ensure compatibility and prevent errors. One best practice is to use the json_encode() function to encode PHP data structures into JSON format, and json_decode() function to decode JSON data into PHP data structures.

// Encode PHP data structure into JSON format
$data = array("name" => "John", "age" => 30);
$jsonData = json_encode($data);

// Decode JSON data into PHP data structure
$decodedData = json_decode($jsonData, true);

// Access decoded data
echo $decodedData["name"]; // Output: John