Handling JSON like a boss in PHP

JsonHandler.php

<?php

// http://nitschinger.at/Handling-JSON-like-a-boss-in-PHP

class JsonHandler
{
    protected static $_messages = array(
        JSON_ERROR_NONE => 'No error has occurred',
        JSON_ERROR_DEPTH => 'The maximum stack depth has been exceeded',
        JSON_ERROR_STATE_MISMATCH => 'Invalid or malformed JSON',
        JSON_ERROR_CTRL_CHAR => 'Control character error, possibly incorrectly encoded',
        JSON_ERROR_SYNTAX => 'Syntax error',
        JSON_ERROR_UTF8 => 'Malformed UTF-8 characters, possibly incorrectly encoded'
    );
 
    public static function encode($value, $options = 0) {
        $result = json_encode($value, $options);
 
        if ($result)  {
            return $result;
        }
 
        throw new RuntimeException(static::$_messages[json_last_error()]);
    }
 
    public static function decode($json, $assoc = false) {
        $result = json_decode($json, $assoc);
 
        if ($result) {
            return $result;
        }
 
        throw new RuntimeException(static::$_messages[json_last_error()]);
    }
 
}

?>