How to get json_encode() to work with ISO-8859-1 (åäö)

Question

json_encode() wont work for me when I'm using åäö. Why? And how can I get it to work?

The php:

echo json_encode($arr);

The javascript:

var theResponse = JSON.parse(xmlHttp.responseText);

When I alert() the response, and the response contains å, ä or ö, the response is = NULL

Please, help me out...

Answer 1

It says in the json_encode() documentation:

This function only works with UTF-8 encoded data.

You should convert it to utf-8 with iconv or mbstring first.

Answer 2

As Greg mentioned, I had to encode åäö to UTF-8. But I did't use iconv or mbstring. When I utf8_encode() all values before putting the values to the array the problem was solved.

Answer 3

This function will cast the correct data type for the JSON output and utf8_encode the strings.

    /* Change data-type from string to integar or float if required.
     * If string detected then utf8_encode() it. */
    function cast_data_types ($value) {
      if (is_array($value)) {
        $value = array_map('cast_data_types',$value);
        return $value;
      }
      if (is_numeric($value)) {
        if(strpos('.', $value)===false) return (float)$value;
        return (int) $value;
      }
      return utf8_encode((string)$value);
    }

json_encode (cast_data_types($data));

Answer 4

JSON defines strings as Unicode!

JSON Definition

You have to encode you ISO to UTF-8

Answer 5

Old question, but figured I'd put this here in case someone needs to log data using json_encode but keep the data untouched, intact for inspection later.

You can encode the data raw using base64_encode, then it will work with json_encode. Later after running json_decode, you can decode the string with base64_decode, you'll get the original data unmodified.

Answer 6

Using the standard method when reading from MySQL:

$resultArray = array();
while($obj = MySQL_fetch_object($res)) {
 $resultArray[] = $obj;
}
$result = json_encode($resultArray);

The encoding can be done using the following:

$resultArray = array();
while($obj = MySQL_fetch_object($res)) {
 foreach($obj as $key => $value) {
  if (!is_null($value)) {
   $obj->$key = utf8_encode($value);
  }
 }
 $resultArray[] = $obj;
}
$result = json_encode($resultArray);

The if is_null has to be included so that null fields (e.g., DateTime fields) remain null in the output.

Answer 7

The $data (in my case) is an array with text values as ISO-8859-1. The trick below prepares $data to be used with json_encode.

function toUtf8(&$v, $k) {
    $v = utf8_encode($v);
}
array_walk_recursive($data, 'toUtf8');

Answer 8

As of PHP 5.4.0:

Convert your strings in your array to into utf-8 using utf8_encode($str) function.

Then json_encode with JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE option:

$arr = json_encode($array, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);