title: PHP decode JSON from cookie
body: <p>I'm trying to parse a JSON encoded string from a cookie and when I run json_decode() on the string it returns as null. It should be a simple operation - what am I missing?</p>
  
  <pre><code>/* Get */
  
      $cookie_exampleData = $_COOKIE['exmaple_data'];
  
      // Retrieves: '{\"FirstName\":\"Angus\",\"LastName\":\"MacGyver\",\"Email\":\"hello@email.com\",\"Phone\":\"8185555555\"}'
  
  /* Decode */
  
      $cookie_exampleData_decoded = json_decode($cookie_exampleData);
  
  /* Print */
  
      var_dump($cookie_exampleData_decoded);
  
      // Returns: NULL
  </code></pre>