What best practices should be followed when troubleshooting decoding errors of JSON strings in PHP applications on different server environments?

When troubleshooting decoding errors of JSON strings in PHP applications on different server environments, it is important to ensure that the JSON string is valid and properly formatted. Additionally, check for any encoding issues that may be causing the problem. Using the json_last_error() function can help identify the specific error that is occurring during decoding.

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

$jsonData = json_decode($jsonString);

if($jsonData === null && json_last_error() !== JSON_ERROR_NONE){
    echo 'Error decoding JSON: ' . json_last_error_msg();
} else {
    // JSON decoding successful, continue with processing the data
}