Observe this little script:
$array = array('stuff' => 'things');
print_r($array);
//prints - Array ( [stuff] => things )
$arrayEncoded = json_encode($array);
echo $arrayEncoded . "<br />";
//prints - {"stuff":"things"}
$arrayDecoded = json_decode($arrayEncoded);
print_r($arrayDecoded);
//prints - stdClass Object ( [stuff] => things )
Why does PHP turn the JSON Object into a class?
Shouldn't an array that is json_encoded then json_decoded yield the EXACT same result?
Take a closer look at the second parameter of json_decode($json, $assoc, $depth) at https://secure.php.net/json_decode
var_dump(json_decode('{"0":0}')); // output: object(0=>0)
var_dump(json_decode('[0]')); //output: [0]
var_dump(json_decode('{"0":0}', true));//output: [0]
var_dump(json_decode('[0]', true)); //output: [0]
If you decode the json into array, information will be lost in this situation.
There is also a good PHP 4 json encode / decode library (that is even PHP 5 reverse compatible) written about in this blog post: Using json_encode() and json_decode() in PHP4 (Jun 2009).
The concrete code is by Michal Migurski and by Matt Knapp: