How to Encode UTF-8 Characters Correctly with json_encode() in PHP?

UTF-8 Character Encoding Encoding Issues with json_encode()

Problem Statement

Encoding UTF-8 characters is problematic with the json_encode() function. After this function encodes values from LATIN1 to UTF-8, the output becomes null.

Question

How can json_encode() be used to encode UTF-8 values correctly, without resorting to third-party libraries like Zend Framework?

Answer

To resolve this issue, follow these steps:

1. Create an Empty Array: Initialize an empty $rows array to store the encoded result set.
2. Encode Row Values: Iterate through the database result set, converting each row's values to UTF-8 using utf8_encode. Store the encoded rows in the $rows array.
3. Encode and Echo JSON: Finally, pass the $rows array to json_encode() and echo the result to send the correctly encoded UTF-8 values to the web browser.

Here's an example code snippet:

<code class="php">// Create an empty array for the encoded resultset
$rows = array();

// Loop over the db resultset and put encoded values into $rows
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
  $rows[] = array_map('utf8_encode', $row);
}

// Output $rows
echo json_encode($rows);</code>

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