Why Does PHP\'s `json_decode()` Return NULL with Seemingly Valid JSON?

PHP json_decode() Returns NULL When Provided Seemingly Valid JSON: A Resolution

When attempting to decode a JSON object stored in a plain text file using PHP's json_decode() function, some users have encountered the issue where the function returns NULL despite the JSON appearing valid when tested against JSON validators.

Examining the code snippet provided, the JSON object appears well-formatted. However, it is possible that the file contains invisible characters or non-UTF-8 characters that can interfere with the decoding process.

To resolve this issue, a solution suggested by users involves using PHP's preg_replace() function to remove any non-UTF-8 characters from the JSON string. The modified code would look like this:

$json_object = json_decode( preg_replace('/[\x00-\x1F\x80-\xFF]/', '', $json_string), true );

This regular expression will replace any characters outside the UTF-8 character range with an empty string, ensuring that the JSON string contains only valid characters.

By applying this modification, PHP's json_decode() function should be able to successfully decode the JSON object and return a PHP object or array representing the JSON data. This solution has been reported to work efficiently for many users facing this issue.

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