Convert a json to multi-dimensional PHP array - php

Question

I have the following json sent to my API endpoint
{"key":"levels","value":"[{role_id:1, access_level_id:3}, {role_id:2, access_level_id:1}, {role_id:3, access_level_id:2}]","description":""}
at the backend, I receive it as a Laravel request as follows:
public function functionName(Request $request){
$req=$request->all();
Log::debug($req['value']);
return;
}
And it returns the following expected result
array (
'key' => 'levels',
'value' => '[{role_id:1, access_level_id:3}, {role_id:2, access_level_id:1}, {role_id:3, access_level_id:2}]',
'description' => NULL,
)
But I need to convert the 'value' to array also. so that I can have a multidimensional PHP array. So I expect to get something like
array (
'key' => 'levels',
'value' => array(
array('role_id'=>1, 'access_level_id'=>3),
array('role_id'=>2, 'access_level_id'=>1),
array('role_id'=>3, 'access_level_id'=>2)
)
'description' => NULL,
)
but when in my Laravel method I do the following:
public function share_doc(Request $request){
$req=$request->all();
Log::debug(json_decode($req['value'],true));
return;
}
trying to convert the json received as 'value' to PHP array, it returns nothing -i.e. no value, no array, no string. Just nothing.
So, my struggle here is how I can convert the entire json string received as 'value' from the request to a PHP array so that I can iterate through the items with PHP
Thank you for helping

Answer 1

Your problem is that the value element is not valid JSON as the keys are not quoted. For the sample data you provide, you can fix that with preg_replace and then json_decode the changed value:
$x['value'] = json_decode(preg_replace('/(\w+)(?=:)/', '"$1"', $x['value']), true);
print_r($x);
Output:
Array
(
[key] => levels
[value] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[role_id] => 1
[access_level_id] => 3
)
[1] => Array
(
[role_id] => 2
[access_level_id] => 1
)
[2] => Array
(
[role_id] => 3
[access_level_id] => 2
)
)
[description] =>
)
Demo on 3v4l.org