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up vote 2 down vote favorite

For the function json_decode(), there are 2 options of output, JSON Object or Array. 

$obj = json_decode($json_string, false);

or 

$array = json_decode($json_string, true);

Which type performs better ?

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closed as not constructive by deceze, Laurent, Jay Gilford, spajce, Rachel Gallen Mar 20 '13 at 5:43

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1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote accepted

For the function json_decode(), people may struggle between output the result as Object or Associate Array. Here I performed a benchmark.

Codes used ( where $json_string is a JSON output of Google Maps V3 Geocoding API ):

// object
$start_time = microtime(true);
$json = json_decode($json_string, false);
echo '(' . $json->results[0]->geometry->location->lat . ',' . $json->results[0]->geometry->location->lng . ')' . PHP_EOL;
$end_time = microtime(true);
echo 'JSON Object: ' . round($end_time - $start_time, 6) . 's' . PHP_EOL;

// array
$start_time = microtime(true);
$json = json_decode($json_string, true);
echo  '(' . $json['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lat'] . ',' . $json['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lng'] . ')' . PHP_EOL;
$end_time = microtime(true);
echo 'JSON Array: ' . round($end_time - $start_time, 6) . 's' . PHP_EOL;

I found that Array is 30% ~ 50% faster than Object.

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Just one call and running both in the same script isn't really a benchmark is it ;) –  Bart Mar 19 '13 at 7:43
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