Append to json file and read it with php?

Question

PHP

Good afternoon!
A little confused in JSON in PHP
The task is to write data to a text file or to a json file data, but not just write, but add new data, a kind of database. so at the moment it’s more convenient, I understand that it’s better to use the database, but I want to use the file first.

I try like this

$datetime = date("Y-m-d H:i:s");
$date = date("Y-m-d");
$time = date("H:i:s");

$array = [
  'Дата' => $datetime,
  'День' => $date,
  'Время' => $time, 
  ];
$json = json_encode($array, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);

$filename = 'trunk_hook_json.json';
file_put_contents($filename,$json,FILE_APPEND | LOCK_EX);

echo $json;
exit();

The data is successfully written to the file
{"Date":"2022-02-02 17:40:12","Day":"2022-02-02","Time":"17:40:12"}

If again I execute the code, it turns out like this
{"Date":"2022-02-02 17:40:12","Day":"2022-02-02","Time":"17:40:12"}{"Date ":"2022-02-02 17:40:12","Day":"2022-02-02","Time":"17:40:12"}

Then I read like this

$Json = file_get_contents('trunk_hook_json.json');
$array = json_decode($Json);
var_dump($array);

The result is displayed if there is one record in the file, if there are two, then it displays null
Tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

Instead of

file_put_contents($filename,$json,FILE_APPEND | LOCK_EX);

... write like this:

$payload = file_exists($filename) ? ",{$json}]" : "[{$json}]"; 
$fileHandler = fopen($filename, "c");
fseek($fileHandler, -1, SEEK_END);
fwrite($fileHandler, $payload);
fclose($fileHandler);

Answer 2

The result is displayed if there is one record in the file, if there are two, then it displays null

Because
{"Date":"2022-02-02 17:40:12","Day":"2022-02-02","Time":"17:40:12"}{"Date":" 2022-02-02 17:40:12","Day":"2022-02-02","Time":"17:40:12"}
is not a valid json. A valid one would be, for example, like this:
[{"Date":"2022-02-02 17:40:12","Day":"2022-02-02","Time":"17:40:12"} ,{"Date":"2022-02-02 17:40:12","Day":"2022-02-02","Time":"17:40:12"}]
In any case, append json will not work. Or process it completely and completely overwrite the file. Or store in a file in lines and read in lines.