Accessing object returned from GraphQL using curl - php

Question

I have returned data using GraphQL / curl that looks like this:
{
"data" : {
"publisher" : {
"contracts" : {
"totalCount" : 11,
"count" : 1,
"resultList" : [
I want to get the resultList array and keep getting an error 'Warning: Attempt to read property "data" on string' when trying to do $result->data to move into the first object. What am I doing wrong?
My variable from the curl request is $result.
Update: I HAVE TRIED DECODING AND THE RETURNED DATA IS OF TYPE INT? How?
function getData($data_String){
$endpoint = "https://programs.api.cj.com/query";
$authToken = "pass";
$qry = '{"query":"{ publisher { contracts(publisherId: \"xxxxxxx\", limit: 1, filters: {advertiserId: \"'.$advertiser_id.'\"}) { totalCount count resultList { startTime endTime status advertiserId programTerms { id name specialTerms { name body } isDefault actionTerms { id actionTracker { id name description type } lockingMethod { type durationInDays } performanceIncentives { threshold { type value } reward { type commissionType value } currency } commissions { rank situation { id name } itemList { id name } promotionalProperties { id name } rate { type value currency } } } } } } } }","variables":null}';
$headers = array();
$headers[] = 'Content-Type: application/json';
$headers[] = 'Authorization: Bearer '.$authToken;
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $endpoint);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $qry);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_errno($ch)) {
echo 'Error:' . curl_error($ch);
}
curl_close($ch);
$data = json_decode($result);
return $data;
}

Answer 1

First, be sure to check if the result is a valid json.
Then use json_decode to get an object
$result = json_decode($result);
if (is_object($result)) {
if (!empty($result->data->publisher->contracts->resultList)) {
$resultList = $result->data->publisher->contracts->resultList;
}
} else {
// Log or something
error_log("json decode return: " . print_r($result, true))
}