How to determine whether a string is valid JSON?

If you are using the built in json_decode PHP function, json_last_error returns the last error (e.g. JSON_ERROR_SYNTAX when your string wasn't JSON).

Usually json_decode returns null anyway.

For my projects I use this function (please read the "Note" on the json_decode() docs).

Passing the same arguments you would pass to json_decode() you can detect specific application "errors" (e.g. depth errors)

With PHP >= 5.6

// PHP >= 5.6
function is_JSON(...$args) {
    json_decode(...$args);
    return (json_last_error()===JSON_ERROR_NONE);
}

With PHP >= 5.3

// PHP >= 5.3
function is_JSON() {
    call_user_func_array('json_decode',func_get_args());
    return (json_last_error()===JSON_ERROR_NONE);
}

Usage example:

$mystring = '{"param":"value"}';
if (is_JSON($mystring)) {
    echo "Valid JSON string";
} else {
    $error = json_last_error_msg();
    echo "Not valid JSON string ($error)";
}