PHP 8.1 - how to handle JSON decoding of associative arrays with complex nested structures?
I'm converting an old project and I'm converting an old project and Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue that's driving me crazy... I've searched everywhere and can't find a clear answer. I'm encountering issues while trying to decode a deeply nested JSON structure into PHP associative arrays using `json_decode()`. The JSON string I'm working with looks like this: ```json { "user": { "id": 1, "name": "John Doe", "preferences": { "languages": ["EN", "FR"], "notifications": { "email": true, "sms": false } } } } ``` When I decode this JSON string with the following PHP code: ```php $jsonString = '{"user":{"id":1,"name":"John Doe","preferences":{"languages":["EN","FR"],"notifications":{"email":true,"sms":false}}}}}'; $data = json_decode($jsonString, true); ``` I expect to access the user's name and preferences, but when I try to access `$data['user']['preferences']['languages']`, I get the following warning: ``` Warning: Undefined array key "preferences" in /path/to/script.php on line 10 ``` I've confirmed that the JSON string is valid and correctly formatted, and I even printed the entire `$data` array using `print_r($data);` to debug. The output shows that the `user` key exists, but it appears that `preferences` is not being decoded properly. I have already tried using `json_last_error()` to check for any errors after decoding and it returns `JSON_ERROR_NONE`, indicating no issues with the JSON itself. I'm running PHP 8.1.0 and I suspect it might be related to how PHP handles associative arrays with nested structures. Any insights on how to properly handle this would be greatly appreciated. Is there a better approach or best practices I should follow when dealing with complex JSON structures in PHP? My development environment is macOS. Any ideas what could be causing this? This is part of a larger web app I'm building. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. The stack includes Php and several other technologies. Is there a simpler solution I'm overlooking? For reference, this is a production microservice.