What are the potential pitfalls of trying to access object properties in PHP when the data is actually an array?

When trying to access object properties in PHP, it's important to remember that if the data is actually an array, attempting to access properties using the object syntax will result in errors. To avoid this issue, you can simply access the array elements using array syntax instead.

// Incorrect way to access object properties when data is actually an array
$data = ['name' => 'John', 'age' => 30];
echo $data->name; // This will result in an error

// Correct way to access array elements
echo $data['name']; // This will correctly output 'John'