Retrieving record but the column appears to be a string, not array

Hi,
I'm in laravel, working on retrieving a record of a vehicle. Within the record is a column 'vehicle_options' which saves the options of a vehicles like this:
["Driver Side Air Bag","Passenger Air Bag","Side Impact Airbag"] etc. etc.

As part of a form the record is being pulled into, there are a series of checkboxes that need to be checked or not checked depending if the option exists.

Was trying below but I'm thinking the $vehicle->vehicle_options is returning as a string so my code below fails. Any idea where I'm going wrong?

if (in_array("Driver Side Air Bag", $vehicle->vehicle_options)) {
echo "found";
} else {
echo "not found";
}

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When I var_dump the variable I get:
string(659) "["Driver Side Air Bag","Passenger Air Bag","Side Impact Airbag","Child-Safety Locks","ABS Brakes","Traction Control","Stability Control","Fog lights","Alarm","Anti-Theft","Power-Assist Disc Brakes","Power Steering","Power Windows","Power Locks","Power Mirrors","Tilt Steering","Telescoping Steering Wheel","Cruise Control","Keyless Entry","Heated Mirrors","Intermittent Wipers","Rear Defrost","Auxiliary 12v Outlet","Steering Wheel Controls","Split Folding Rear Seats","Air Conditioning","Heated Front Seats","Bucket Seats","Privacy Glass","Climate Control","Cloth Interior","AM\/FM Stereo","CD Player","MP3","Auxiliary Audio Jack","Bluetooth","Alloy Wheels"]"

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LVL 1
tjyoungAsked:
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GauthierCommented:
http://php.net/manual/en/function.str-getcsv.php

$optionsArr = str_getcsv(substr($vehicle->vehicle_options, 1, -1), ',', '"');

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Be sure to check how AM\/FM is read.

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GauthierCommented:
Also, you may want to check the vehicle_options string if only one options is checked, or if no option are checked the "[" "]" may then be missing.
Olaf DoschkeSoftware DeveloperCommented:
To me, this looks like the same case you already had solved from Ray Paseur and gr8gonzo in https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/28936728/Arrays-saved-in-mysql-DB-how-to-extract-properly-in-php.html

There is no data type array in MySQL, what's stored is a string in a JSON notation.
What is normal is getting a row of an SQL query as an associative array with column names as their key, but not getting an array out of a single column. So somehow this is preprocessed when saving to save that string and you post process that after retrieving it from the database.

Bye, Olaf.
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tjyoungAuthor Commented:
I apologize it is very close if not the same. I did however try Ray's fix and find this is happening:

I'm testing like this:
$options =  explode(',', $vehicle->vehicle_options, true);
if (in_array("Passenger Air Bag", $options)) {
echo "found";
} else {
echo "not found";
}

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Array looks like below, but returns 'not found'. Any idea why?

array(1) { [0]=> string(659) "["Driver Side Air Bag","Passenger Air Bag","Side Impact Airbag","Child-Safety Locks","ABS Brakes","Traction Control","Stability Control","Fog lights","Alarm","Anti-Theft","Power-Assist Disc Brakes","Power Steering","Power Windows","Power Locks","Power Mirrors","Tilt Steering","Telescoping Steering Wheel","Cruise Control","Keyless Entry","Heated Mirrors","Intermittent Wipers","Rear Defrost","Auxiliary 12v Outlet","Steering Wheel Controls","Split Folding Rear Seats","Air Conditioning","Heated Front Seats","Bucket Seats","Privacy Glass","Climate Control","Cloth Interior","AM\/FM Stereo","CD Player","MP3","Auxiliary Audio Jack","Bluetooth","Alloy Wheels"]" }

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Olaf DoschkeSoftware DeveloperCommented:
The answer you accepted was about json_decode, wasn't it?

Bye, Olaf.
tjyoungAuthor Commented:
In the end, this worked for me perfectly and was able to located the item in the array. No idea why, but works! If you ran this code, returns true:

$options = str_getcsv($vehicle->vehicle_options);
if (in_array('Power Windows', $options)) {
echo "found";
} else {
echo "not found";
}
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