Why does the PHP json encode function convert UTF-8 strings to hexadecimal entities

Question

I have a PHP script that deals with a wide variety of languages  Unfortunately  whenever I try to use json encode  any Unicode output is converted to hexadecimal entities  Is this the expected behavior  Is there any way to convert the output to UTF-8 characters   Here s an example of what I m seeing   INPUT  echo  text    OUTPUT                       INPUT  json encode  text     OUTPUT    u0411 u0430 u0437 u0430  u0434 u0430 u043d u043d u0438  u0433 u0440 u0435 u0448 u043a u0430

User · Answer

Is this the expected behavior     the json encode   only works with UTF-8 encoded data   maybe you can get an answer to convert it here  cyrillic-characters-in-phps-json-encode

User · Answer

One solution is to first encode data and then decode it in the same file    string  json encode  input  JSON UNESCAPED UNICODE     echo  decoded   html entity decode   string

User · Answer

JSON UNESCAPED UNICODE is available on PHP Version 5 4 or later  The following code is for Version 5 3   UPDATED   html entity decode is a bit more efficient than pack   mb convert encoding    SKIP   FAIL  skips backslashes itself and specified characters by JSON HEX   flags     nbsp   function raw json encode  input   flags   0         fails   implode      array filter array                           flags  amp  JSON HEX TAG    u003 CE                  flags  amp  JSON HEX AMP    u0026                 flags  amp  JSON HEX APOS    u0027                 flags  amp  JSON HEX QUOT    u0022                      pattern                fails   SKIP   FAIL  u  0-9a-fA-F  4            callback   function   m            return html entity decode   amp  x m 1     ENT QUOTES   UTF-8               return preg replace callback  pattern   callback  json encode  input   flags

User · Answer

Since PHP 5 4 0  there is an option called JSON UNESCAPED UNICODE  Check it out  https   php net function json-encode Therefore you should try  json encode   text  JSON UNESCAPED UNICODE

User · Answer

The raw json encode   function above did not solve me the problem  for some reason  the callback function raised an error on my PHP 5 2 5 server    But this other solution did actually work   https   www experts-exchange com questions 28628085 json-encode-fails-with-special-characters html  Credits should go to Marco Gasi  I just call his function instead of calling json encode     function jsonRemoveUnicodeSequences   json struct          return preg replace        u  a-f0-9  4   e    iconv  UCS-4LE   UTF-8  pack  V   hexdec  U 1       json encode   json struct

User · Answer

Here is my combined solution for various PHP versions    In my company we are working with different servers with various PHP versions  so I had to find solution working for all     phpVersion   substr phpversion    0  3  1   if  phpVersion  gt   5 4       encodedValue   json encode  value  JSON UNESCAPED UNICODE     else      encodedValue   preg replace       u  a-f0-9  4   e    iconv  UCS-4LE   UTF-8  pack  V   hexdec  U 1       json encode  value        Credits should go to Marco Gasi  amp  abu  The solution for PHP    5 4 is provided in the json encode docs

User · Answer

You like to set charset and unescaped unicode   header  Content-Type  application json charset utf-8       json encode  data JSON UNESCAPED UNICODE JSON PRETTY PRINT

User · Answer

json encode  text  JSON UNESCAPED UNICODE JSON UNESCAPED SLASHES

[php] Why does the PHP json_encode function convert UTF-8 strings to hexadecimal entities?

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