How would I decode this JSON to insert into a json column? ErrorException: Object of class stdClass could not be converted to string in file

Question

What would be the proper way to decode this json?

my model has

 protected $casts = [
        'items' => 'array'
    ];

my json items:

{
    "data": [
    {
        "name": "Google",
        "link": "http://google.com"
    }, 
    {
        "name": "ALink",
        "link": "http://link.org"
    }
  ]
}

json_decode($request->items) returns the error: ErrorException: Object of class stdClass could not be converted to string in file

Answer 1

Your json is of an object, not an array. You should cast it to an object like this

protected $casts = [
   'items' => 'object'
];

To save the json into your model you can then do $obj->items = $request->items after changing the cast to object as above.

Alternatively, If you have to save this as an array then you can cast the request into one by doing (array)$request->items instead of json_decode.