cUrl is returning JSON string, json_decode isn't decoding it to object or array

Question

I'm using github's api to pull the most popular "starred" items under PHP, and it's pulling the json string ok. Only issue is my json_decode is still just dumping the JSON string and not an object. Below is the function I'm running.

private function fillTable(){
$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt_array($curl, array(
  CURLOPT_URL       => 'https://api.github.com/search/repositories?q=+language:php&sort=stars&order=desc',
  CURLOPT_USERAGENT => 'trickell'
));
$res = curl_exec($curl);
var_dump(json_decode($res));
}

I'm not exactly sure why it's not decoding the json string to an object. If you run this you should be able to see exactly what's pulling.

have you tried validating the string? Maybe it's not JSON at all — Kevin Kopf
– Kevin Kopf, Commented Feb 27, 2016 at 2:46
@HankyPanky you have a valid point. No need to check the incoming data from any service ever then, I'll stop doing that too. — Kevin Kopf
– Kevin Kopf, Commented Feb 27, 2016 at 2:50
Not any service, but yeah for some service that big if it doesnt work its our code that doesnt work mostly. Not theirs — Hanky Panky
– Hanky Panky, Commented Feb 27, 2016 at 2:51

Hanky Panky · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-27 02:58:01Z

5

Because you have no json to decode and that is because you are not telling cURL to return the value to you so you are trying to decode an empty string.

$res = curl_exec($curl);

That $res is going to be only TRUE / FALSE unless you ask for RETURNTRANSFER, as explained here

curl_exec

Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure. However, if the CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER option is set, it will return the result on success, FALSE on failure.

So you have to add another option to your cURL call.

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

You may ask then why are you seeing the JSON string if it is not being returned, this answers that question

CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER

TRUE to return the transfer as a string of the return value of curl_exec() instead of outputting it out directly.

(emphasis mine)

edited Feb 27, 2016 at 2:58

answered Feb 27, 2016 at 2:50

Hanky Panky

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Comments

Siddharth Shukla · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-21 08:23:20Z

0

<?php
$post = ['batch_id'=> "2"];
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,'https://example.com/student_list.php');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, http_build_query($post));
$response = curl_exec($ch);
$result = json_decode($response);
$new=   $result->status;
if( $new =="1")
{
  echo "<script>alert('Student list')</script>";
}
else 
{
  echo "<script>alert('Not Removed')</script>";
}

?>

answered Nov 21, 2016 at 8:23

Siddharth Shukla

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Comments

lucasvm1980 · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-30 02:56:54Z

0

You are missing this:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
            'Content-Type: application/json',
            'Accept: application/json'
        ));

answered Oct 30, 2018 at 2:56

lucasvm1980

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