Backend and Infrastructure

Working with Files, JSON and Booleans in PHP

Sprout Video

Right now our pet data array is just hardcoded and not dynamic. Eventually, we're going to pull this array from a database and let users add new pets to it. But before we get there, let's pretend someone has given us a file that contains all of adorable pets available on airPupnMeow.com. Our goal will be to read that file and turn its contents into a PHP array that looks just like the one we're creating now by hand. Once you add the sample JSON file to our project (found in the resources folder of the sample code), you'll learn how to open and read the file, and then decode the JSON into an array. You're also going to learn a little bit about debugging when working with files and file paths, and be introduced to PHP booleans.