Object of class stdClass could not be converted to string error

Question

I have the following string:

{\"Coords\":[{\"Accuracy\":\"65\",\"Latitude\":\"53.277720488429026\",\"Longitude\":\"-9.012038778269686\",\"Timestamp\":\"Fri J         


        

Answer 1

You get the error because you are trying to turn a stdClass object into a string, something it doesn't support.

Instead of echo $decoded_traces try var_dump($decoded_traces) - that will give a diagnostic view of the object you've decoded (which I presume is what you wanted). You should find it looks like this

class stdClass#1 (2) {
  public $Coords =>
  array(5) {
    [0] =>
    class stdClass#2 (4) {
      public $Accuracy =>
      string(2) "65"
      public $Latitude =>
      string(18) "53.277720488429026"
      public $Longitude =>
      string(18) "-9.012038778269686"
      public $Timestamp =>
      string(39) "Fri Jul 05 2013 11:59:34 GMT+0100 (IST)"
    }
    [1] => (more of the same, edited for brevity)
    [2] =>
    [3] =>
    [4] =>
  }
  public $Scan =>
  string(8) "Whatever"
}

By default, json_encode will create stdClass objects like the above. If you would prefer an associative array, pass true as the second parameter to json_decode, e.g. $decoded_traces=json_decode($traces, true);

As a further aside, although stdClass can't be turned into a string, your own classes can - a class which implements the __toString magic method could be converted to a string!