Cannot Parse Paypal "notify_url" Data Into an Associative Array (PHP) - php

Question

I am setting up a Paypal sandbox. Everything works fine. When the transaction is done, paypal POSTS some data to my "notify_url" page (which I've named process-payment.php).
Now, when I post:
$array = $_POST;
$encodedString = json_decode($array);
Now, I can PUT that encoded string in the database, and it looks like:
{"mc_gross":"10.00","protection_eligibility":"Eligible",
"address_status":"confirmed","payer_id"}
Now, my big question is, how can I get THAT (^^^) into an associative array, where I can store those values in a database that records the transaction? Thank you so much for your help in advance! I've already tried:
$pp_array = file_get_contents('php://input');
$arrayDump = json_encode($pp_array);
$pp_array = json_decode($pp_array, true);
Which, obviously, didn't work. So, kinda hoping someone can give me a little tutelage here!

Answer 1

You are trying to use json_decode on an bad array because your payer_id is NULL. Consider filling or removing it. This is a working example with a filled payer_id:
$json = '{"mc_gross":"10.00","protection_eligibility":"Eligible", "address_status":"confirmed","payer_id":"2"}';
$json_asoc = (json_decode($json, true));
print $json_asoc['mc_gross']; // 10
For details see here

Answer 2

So, turns out that the code I used to make it work was this:
$array = $_POST;
$arrayDump = json_encode($array);
file_put_contents('payment-record.txt', $arrayDump);
$fileContents = file_get_contents('payment-record.txt');
$pp_array = json_decode($fileContents, true);
That gave me a workable array. Not sure why I had to write it first, but there you go.