What are some common reasons for json_decode to return NULL in PHP?

One common reason for json_decode to return NULL in PHP is invalid JSON syntax. This can happen if the JSON string is not properly formatted or contains errors. To solve this issue, you can use the json_last_error() function to check for any JSON parsing errors before decoding the JSON string. 

$jsonString = '{"key": "value"}';

// Decode JSON string
$data = json_decode($jsonString);

// Check for JSON parsing errors
if (json_last_error() !== JSON_ERROR_NONE) {
    // Handle error
    echo "Error decoding JSON: " . json_last_error_msg();
} else {
    // JSON decoding successful
    var_dump($data);
}

Keywords

json_decode NULL PHP data parsing error handling

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