How to convert this array into JSON in PHP

Question

I read many many many posts on this subject and I tried many solutions and I can't convert this multi-array into a JSON string. This is what I see when I `print_r($result)`: ``` Array ( [profiles] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [ID] => 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001 [UserName] => Administrator GU [Age] => 37 [CityStateCode] => Montréal [OnlineSince] => En ligne depuis 6 heures 39 minutes [IsPaying] => true [LabelOnlineStatus] => En ligne ) [1] => Array ( [ID] => ab3dd04e-5621-11e3-b448-103f0c805f5a [UserName] => Guillaume Le Genie [Age] => 68 [CityStateCode] => Montréal [OnlineSince] => En ligne depuis 1 jour 9 heures [IsPaying] => true [LabelOnlineStatus] => Hors-Ligne ) [2] => Array ( [ID] => 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000050 [UserName] => Baby-dragoon [Age] => 25 [CityStateCode] => Québec [OnlineSince] => En ligne depuis 5 jours 6 heures [IsPaying] => true [LabelOnlineStatus] => Hors-Ligne ) ) ) ``` I try this (with and without true parameter): ``` $result = json_encode($result…

Accepted Answer

I am running PHP 5.4.7, for me the following code works flawlessly:

```
$result = json_encode($result, true);
```

I know you have already tried that. Leonardo's suggestion also works for me:

```
$result = json_encode($result, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);
```

The issue is that in PHP 5.5.0 `json_encode` requires the strings to be UTF-8.

So.. you will have to pass a valid utf8 string, how to do it depend on what encoding you have your strings in. You are right in thinking you need `utf8_encode` or similar function. You may also want to give a look to `iconv`.

Now the issue with `utf8_encode` is that this function will not work with arrays, for that you need a helper function, such as:

```
function utf8_encode_recursive ($array)
{
    $result = array();
    foreach ($array as $key => $value)
    {
        if (is_array($value))
        {
            $result[$key] = utf8_encode_recursive($value);
        }
        else if (is_string($value))
        {
            $result[$key] = utf8_encode($value);
        }
        else
        {
            $result[$key] = $value;
        }
    }
    return $result;
}
```

Note 1: `utf8_encode` only accepts strings in ISO-8859-1. Verify what encoding you are using.

Note 2: `htmlspecialchars` and `htmlentities` will not convert all the characters of your encoding, only those "dangerous" (`htmlspecialchars`) or that have html equivalent named entities (`htmlentities`). For this use case use `mb_encode_numericentity` instead.

Note 3: Both `iconv` and `mb_encode_numericentity` will allow you to specify the encoding of your string. Also they don't work with arrays either, so you will need to write recursive helper functions for them too.

How to convert this array into JSON in PHP

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