- var_dump: documentation ( source)
- json_decode: documentation ( source)
<?php
$json = '{ "0" : "test1" }';
// just decode that into an object
$obj = json_decode($json);
// recast it into an array
$array = (array) $obj;
// just dump to see the results
var_dump($obj, $array, $array[(string) 0], $array[0]);