JSON can be decoded to PHP arrays by using the $associative = true option. Be wary that associative arrays in PHP can be a "list" or "object" when converted to/from JSON, depending on the keys (of absence of them).
You would expect that recoding and re-encoding will always yield the same JSON string, but take this example:
$json = '{"0": "No", "1": "Yes"}';
$array = json_decode($json, true); // decode as associative hash
print json_encode($array) . PHP_EOL;
This will output a different JSON string than the original:
["No","Yes"]
The object has turned into an array!
Similarly, a array that doesn't have consecutive zero based numerical indexes, will be encoded to a JSON object instead of a list.
$array = [
'first',
'second',
'third',
];
print json_encode($array) . PHP_EOL;
// remove the second element
unset($array[1]);
print json_encode($array) . PHP_EOL;
The output will be:
["first","second","third"]
{"0":"first","2":"third"}
The array has turned into an object!
In other words, decoding/encoding to/from PHP arrays is not always symmetrical, or might not always return what you expect!
On the other hand, decoding/encoding from/to stdClass objects (the default) is always symmetrical.
Arrays may be somewhat easier to work with/transform than objects. But especially if you need to decode, and re-encode json, it might be prudent to decode to objects and not arrays.
If you want to enforce an array to encode to a JSON list (all array keys will be discarded), use:
json_encode(array_values($array));
If you want to enforce an array to encode to a JSON object, use:
json_encode((object)$array);
See also: https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.array-is-list.php
