How to Properly Parse JSON POST Request Bodies in PHP?

Solving HTTP Request Body Parsing in JSON POST for PHP

When developing webhook endpoints in PHP, retrieving and parsing the JSON payload can be challenging. This article addresses a common issue encountered when attempting to read the HTTP request body in a JSON POST scenario.

The first step involves verifying that the request header correctly indicates the presence of JSON data within the payload. In this case, the request header shows a large JSON object waiting to be parsed. Nevertheless, accessing this object directly through methods like $_POST['json'] or $_POST is not feasible, as the data is not structured as an array.

Some developers resort to using file_get_contents('php://input') or fopen('php://input', 'r') to obtain the request body. However, using these methods alone does not suffice; we also require the json_decode() function to transform the raw JSON string into an accessible format.

The correct approach, as discovered, involves combining these steps. Here's the solution:

$inputJSON = file_get_contents('php://input');
$input = json_decode($inputJSON, TRUE); //convert JSON into array

By setting the second parameter of json_decode() to TRUE, the JSON is converted into an associative array. This allows for easy access and manipulation of the data within the PHP script, fulfilling the requirement to parse and interact with the POST-ed JSON object.

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