Question

For some reason json_decode is returning NULL with valid JSON.

The json is located here: http://www.nfl.com/liveupdate/scorestrip/scorestrip.json

I am getting the file contents of the page (file_get_contents) and then running json_decode on it.

Also tried stripslashes b/c of magic quotes.

Thanks in advance,
Phil

$json = file_get_contents('http://www.nfl.com/liveupdate/scorestrip/scorestrip.json');

var_dump(json_decode($json));

Answer 1

The empty array elements are invalid JSON, ie the multiple commas with no values between

["Thu","7:30","Final",,"BAL","6","PHI","13",,,"55424",,"PRE1","2011"]
                      ^ Here                ^ Here    ^Here

You could try inserting empty strings between multiple commas (thanks hakre), ie

$json = preg_replace('/,(?=,)/m', ',""', $json);
// I'm dubious about this working, don't have PHP to test but it works in JS

I don’t know if this messes up your ability to continue using the data though