Problem converting a JSON object to PHP array - php

Question

Am working on a Laravel application which consumes a backend API still written in Laravel. Am passing an array of data from the frontend to the backend via curl, The data is being passed fine but on the backend/API when I try to decode it to PHP array and get an individual property in the array, I keep getting null. What could I be missing out?
PHP array am passing
$data = [
'phone' => '254712345669',
'name' => 'John Doe',
'email' => 'doejohn#email.com',
];
$token = session('access_token');
$letter = GeneralHelper::global_Curl($data , $token , 'api/v1/travel-letter');
Curl function in GeneralHelper to pass data to the backend in Json format
static function global_Curl($data, $token , $url){
$server = 'http://localhost/digital-apps-apis/public';
$headers = ["Accept:application/json",
"Content-Type:application/json",
"Authorization:Bearer ".$token
];
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, ($server.'/'.$url));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode($data));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FRESH_CONNECT, TRUE);
$response = json_decode(curl_exec($ch));
dd($response);
curl_close($ch);
return $response;
}
API side where am retrieving the data
public function getLetter(Request $request){
return $request->all();
}
Data on the browser Network tab after returning from API side
{#368
+"phone": "254712345669"
+"name": "John Doe"
+"email": "doejohn#email.com"
}
When I decode the data so that I can get each single property I get null
public function getLetter(Request $request){
return json_decode($request->all() , true);
}

Answer 1

if json_decode returns null, it means that the given data is not a valid json string. the fact that in the network response the string starts with a #368 suggests me that is an object dump rather than a string. Try to double check that.
Also, probably you know that and it's a leftover form the debug but you have a dd() inside your global_Curl function