I got this error Syntax error, malformed JSON - php

Question

Im integrating Lightspeed API to my website like POS system. I currently getting the value file_get_contents(), but when Im trying to load it array I gives my the error 4 of json_last_error().
Here is my codes:
$maps_url = "http://cloud-docs.merchantos.com/API/Account/797/Item/?itemID=1";
$maps_json = file_get_contents($maps_url);
//print_r($maps_json);
$maps_array = json_decode(stripslashes($maps_json), true);
echo $data = $maps_array['Item']['systemSku'];
switch (json_last_error()) {
case JSON_ERROR_NONE:
echo ' - No errors';
break;
case JSON_ERROR_DEPTH:
echo ' - Maximum stack depth exceeded';
break;
case JSON_ERROR_STATE_MISMATCH:
echo ' - Underflow or the modes mismatch';
break;
case JSON_ERROR_CTRL_CHAR:
echo ' - Unexpected control character found';
break;
case JSON_ERROR_SYNTAX:
echo ' - Syntax error, malformed JSON';
break;
case JSON_ERROR_UTF8:
echo ' - Malformed UTF-8 characters, possibly incorrectly encoded';
break;
default:
echo ' - Unknown error';
break;
}
json_last_error();

Answer 1

Let me rephrase it then:
The shown URL does not retrieve JSON.
It pulls XML.
Therefore json_decode fails.
Hence there's no usable data in $maps_url.
Which is also why ['Item']['systemSku'] won't work.
(And stripslashes would have made no sense in there anyway).
So, investigate the API you're using. Figure out if there is a JSON variant available. Else throw away your code, and instead use a XML traversal frontend, such as SimpleXML.

Answer 2

As mario has said, $maps_url receives XML.
Check out xml_parse_into_struct for help with XML to array conversion.