Potential risky return of `array<string, …>`

If APIs return array<string, …> it is very likely that they are misbehaving on JSON.

Ref https://github.com/nextcloud/spreed/pull/10832

problem is that arrays are used for dictionaries and lists

Sample

<?php

$a = ['a' => true];
$b = [true];


var_dump($a, $b);
var_dump(json_encode($a), json_encode($b));

unset($a['a']);
unset($b[0]);

var_dump($a, $b);

var_dump(json_encode($a), json_encode($b));

Result

array(1) {
  ["a"]=>
  bool(true)
}
array(1) {
  [0]=>
  bool(true)
}
string(10) "{"a":true}"
string(6) "[true]"
array(0) {
}
array(0) {
}
string(2) "[]" // 💔 JSON consumers would expect `"{}"` here
string(2) "[]"

Idea

We can help developers and signal: if you return array<string, …> you are mostlikely running into this error when your array is empty. The fixed return should be array<string, …>|\stdClass like in the Talk PR.