What are the best practices for handling and validating JSON data before processing it in PHP?

When handling and validating JSON data in PHP, it is important to ensure that the data is properly formatted and does not contain any malicious code that could potentially harm the application. One way to do this is by using the json_decode function to parse the JSON data and check for any errors. Additionally, you can use functions like json_last_error to check for any parsing errors and validate the data against a schema if necessary. 

// Example code snippet for handling and validating JSON data in PHP

$jsonData = '{"name": "John Doe", "age": 30}';
$decodedData = json_decode($jsonData);

if ($decodedData === null && json_last_error() !== JSON_ERROR_NONE) {
    // Handle parsing error
    echo "Error parsing JSON data: " . json_last_error_msg();
} else {
    // Data is valid, process it further
    echo "Name: " . $decodedData->name . ", Age: " . $decodedData->age;
}

Keywords

JSON data validation PHP error handling security

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