What are the best practices for constructing and handling JSON data in PHP, especially when dealing with APIs?

When constructing and handling JSON data in PHP, it is important to properly encode and decode data to ensure compatibility with APIs. To construct JSON data, you can use the `json_encode()` function to convert an array into a JSON string. When handling JSON data from APIs, use `json_decode()` to convert the JSON string back into a PHP array for manipulation.

// Constructing JSON data
$data = array('name' => 'John Doe', 'age' => 30);
$jsonData = json_encode($data);

// Handling JSON data from API
$apiResponse = '{"name": "Jane Smith", "age": 25}';
$decodedData = json_decode($apiResponse, true);

// Accessing data from decoded JSON
echo $decodedData['name']; // Output: Jane Smith
echo $decodedData['age']; // Output: 25