Let’s talk about JSON-related functions in PHP

How to operate JSON in PHP? This article will take you to learn more about JSON-related functions in PHP and introduce some things you need to pay attention to when using these functions. I hope it will be helpful to you!

#In the era when we first started working, the world was still dominated by XML, but now the JSON data format has become the de facto standard for transmission in various applications. Students who have started learning programming and development in recent years may have never been exposed to using XML for data transmission. Of course, times are constantly improving, and JSON is more convenient, faster, and more readable than XML. But in fact, from a semantic point of view, XML is more expressive.

Not much to say, operating JSON in PHP is actually very simple. The two most commonly used functions are json_encode() and json_decode(). They have some things to watch out for, and some things to enjoy. Today, let’s study it in depth.

JSON encoding

First, we prepare an array for our subsequent encoding operations.

$data = [
    'id' => 1,
    'name' => '测试情况',
    'cat' => [
        '学生 & "在职"',
    ],
    'number' => "123123123",
    'edu' => [
        [
            &#39;name&#39; => &#39;<b>中学</b>&#39;,
            &#39;date&#39; => &#39;2015-2018&#39;,
        ],
        [
            &#39;name&#39; => &#39;<b>大学</b>&#39;,
            &#39;date&#39; => &#39;2018-2022&#39;,
        ],
    ],
];

A very simple array. In fact, there is nothing special. It just has nesting of data and some Chinese and special symbols. For ordinary JSON encoding, just use json_encode() directly.

$json1 = json_encode($data);
var_dump($json1);
// string(215) "{"id":1,"name":"\u6d4b\u8bd5\u60c5\u51b5","cat":["\u5b66\u751f & \"\u5728\u804c\""],"number":"123123123","edu":[{"name":"<b>\u4e2d\u5b66<\/b>","date":"2015-2018"},{"name":"<b>\u5927\u5b66<\/b>","date":"2018-2022"}]}"

Chinese processing

Have you found any problems with the above encoded JSON data? That's right, I believe many people will see at a glance that all Chinese characters have been converted into the \uxxxx format. This is actually by default, the json_encode() function will convert these multi-byte characters into Unicode format content. We can solve this problem by adding a constant parameter directly after json_encode(), so that Chinese characters can be displayed normally.

$json1 = json_encode($data, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);
var_dump($json1);
// string(179) "{"id":1,"name":"测试情况","cat":["学生 & \"在职\""],"number":"123123123","edu":[{"name":"<b>中学<\/b>","date":"2015-2018"},{"name":"<b>大学<\/b>","date":"2018-2022"}]}"

Of course, it would be too boring just like this. Because an interviewer once asked me during an interview if I could solve this problem without using this constant parameter. Can you please stop looking at the code below and think about your own solutions?

function t($data)
{
    foreach ($data as $k => $d) {
        if (is_object($d)) {
            $d = (array) $d;
        }
        if (is_array($d)) {
            $data[$k] = t($d);
        } else {
            $data[$k] = urlencode($d);
        }
    }
    return $data;
}
$newData = t($data);

$json1 = json_encode($newData);
var_dump(urldecode($json1));
// string(177) "{"id":"1","name":"测试情况","cat":["学生 & "在职""],"number":"123123123","edu":[{"name":"<b>中学</b>","date":"2015-2018"},{"name":"<b>大学</b>","date":"2018-2022"}]}"

In fact, it is a very simple solution. Recursively convert all field contents in the data into urlencode() encoding, then use json_encode() to encode, and then use urldecode() to decode it after completion. Isn’t it interesting? In fact, this is a little trick of many old programmers, because the JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE constant was only available after PHP5.4. Before, if you wanted the encoded data to display Chinese directly, you could only do this.

Of course, now is the PHP8 era, and there is no need for such troublesome operations. However, it cannot be ruled out that some interview halls deliberately ask such questions because they are experienced programmers. It’s enough for everyone to understand that this is the case. After all, in actual project development, there may be very few systems using versions below PHP5.4 (it’s okay not to go to such a company, because technology updates are too slow) .

Other parameters

In addition to JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE, we have many constant parameters that can be used, and this parameter can be operated in parallel, that is, multiple constants can be used Parameters take effect together.

$json1 = json_encode($data, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE | JSON_HEX_TAG | JSON_HEX_AMP | JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK | JSON_HEX_QUOT);
var_dump($json1);
// string(230) "{"id":1,"name":"测试情况","cat":["学生 \u0026 \u0022在职\u0022"],"number":123123123,"edu":[{"name":"\u003Cb\u003E中学\u003C\/b\u003E","date":"2015-2018"},{"name":"\u003Cb\u003E大学\u003C\/b\u003E","date":"2018-2022"}]}"

This bunch of parameters are actually for some special symbols in our data, such as & characters, a8093152e673feb7aba1828c43532094 HTML tags, etc. Of course, there are some constant parameters that are not all displayed. You can check the instructions in the official manual for yourself.

In addition, json_encode() also has a third parameter, which represents the iteration level. For example, the data above is a multi-dimensional array with three levels, so we must give it at least 3 to parse it normally. In the following code, we just gave a 1, so the returned content is false. That is to say, the encoding cannot be successful. By default, the value of this parameter is 512.

var_dump(json_encode($data, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE, 1)); // bool(false)

Object and format processing

By default, json_encode() will encode according to the type of data, so if it is an array, then its encoded content It is the array format of JSON. At this time, we can also add a JSON_FORCE_OBJECT to let it encode an array in the form of an object.

$data = [];
var_dump(json_encode($data)); // string(2) "[]"
var_dump(json_encode($data, JSON_FORCE_OBJECT)); // string(2) "{}"

We learned before when talking about mathematics-related functions that if there is data like NAN in the data, json_encode() cannot encode it. In fact, we can add a JSON_PARTIAL_OUTPUT_ON_ERROR for some unencodable values. Make a substitution. In the code below, we can use it to replace NAN with 0.

$data = NAN;
var_dump(json_encode($data)); // bool(false)
var_dump(json_encode($data, JSON_PARTIAL_OUTPUT_ON_ERROR)); // 0

Object encoding attribute issues

For objects, the content after JSON encoding is the same as serialization. There will only be attributes of the object but not method. After all, the biggest use of JSON is for data transmission, and methods have no practical effect on data transmission. The properties will also differ according to their encapsulation. Only public properties, that is, public properties, will be encoded.

$data = new class
{
    private $a = 1;
    protected $b = 2;
    public $c = 3;

    public function x(){
        
    }
};
var_dump(json_encode($data)); // string(7) "{"c":3}"

从这段测试代码中可以看出，protected 、 private 属性以及那个方法都不会被编码。

JSON 解码

对于 JSON 解码来说，其实更简单一些，因为 json_decode() 的常量参数没有那么多。

var_dump(json_decode($json1));
// object(stdClass)#1 (5) {
//     ["id"]=>
//     int(1)
//     ["name"]=>
//     string(12) "测试情况"
//     ["cat"]=>
// ……
// ……

var_dump(json_decode($json1, true));
// array(5) {
//     ["id"]=>
//     int(1)
//     ["name"]=>
//     string(12) "测试情况"
//     ["cat"]=>
// ……
// ……

首先还是看下它的第二个参数。这个参数的作用其实从代码中就可以看出来，如果不填这个参数，也就是默认情况下它的值是 false ，那么解码出来的数据是对象格式的。而我们将这具参数设置为 true 的话，那么解码后的结果就会是数组格式的。这个也是大家非常常用的功能，就不多做解释了。

var_dump(json_decode('{"a":1321231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231233}', true));
// array(1) {
//     ["a"]=>
//     float(1.3212312312312E+72)
//   }

var_dump(json_decode('{"a":1321231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231233}', true, 512, JSON_BIGINT_AS_STRING));
// array(1) {
//     ["a"]=>
//     string(73) "1321231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231231233"
//   }

对于这种非常长的数字格式的数据来说，如果直接 json_decode() 解码的话，它会直接转换成 科学计数法 。我们可以直接使用一个 JSON_BIGINT_AS_STRING 常量参数，将这种数据在解码的时候直接转换成字符串，其实也就是保留了数据的原始样貌。注意，这里 json_decode() 函数的参数因为有那个转换对象为数组的参数存在，所以它有四个参数，第三个参数是迭代深度，第四个就是定义这些格式化常量值的。而且它和 json_encode() 是反过来的，迭代深度参数在前，格式常量参数在后面，这里一定要注意哦！

如果数据是错误的，那么 json_decode() 会返回 NULL 。

var_dump(json_decode("", true)); // NULL
var_dump(json_decode("{a:1}", true)); // NULL

错误处理

上面两段代码中我们都演示了如果编码或解码的数据有问题会出现什么情况，比如 json_encode() 会返回 false ，json_decode() 会返回 NULL 。但是具体的原因呢？

$data = NAN;
var_dump(json_encode($data)); // bool(false)
var_dump(json_last_error()); // int(7)
var_dump(json_last_error_msg()); // string(34) "Inf and NaN cannot be JSON encoded"

没错，json_last_error() 和 json_last_error_msg() 就是返回 JSON 操作时的错误信息的。也就是说，json_encode() 和 json_decode() 在正常情况下是不会报错的，我们如果要获得错误信息，就得使用这两个函数来获取。这一点也是不少新手小同学没有注意过的地方，没错误信息，不抛出异常问题对我们的开发调试其实是非常不友好的。因为很可能找了半天都不知道问题出在哪里。

在 PHP7.3 之后，新增加了一个常量参数，可以让我们的 json_encode() 和 json_decode() 在编解码错误的时候抛出异常，这样我们就可以快速地定位问题了，现在如果大家的系统运行环境是 PHP7.3 以上的话，非常推荐使用这个常量参数让系统来抛出异常。

// php7.3
var_dump(json_encode($data, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR));
// Fatal error: Uncaught JsonException: Inf and NaN cannot be JSON encoded

var_dump(json_decode('', true, 512, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR));
// PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught JsonException: Syntax error

JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR 是对 json_encode() 和 json_decode() 都起效的。同样，只要设定了这个常量参数，我们就可以使用 try...catch 来进行捕获了。

try {
    var_dump(json_encode($data, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR));
} catch (JsonException $e) {
    var_dump($e->getMessage()); // string(34) "Inf and NaN cannot be JSON encoded"
}

JSON 序列化接口

在之前的文章中，我们学习过 使用Serializable接口来自定义PHP中类的序列化 。也就是说，通过 Serializable 接口我们可以自定义序列化的格式内容。而对于 JSON 来说，同样也提供了一个 JsonSerializable 接口来实现我自定义 JSON 编码时的对象格式内容。

class jsontest implements JsonSerializable
{
    public function __construct($value)
    {$this->value = $value;}
    public function jsonSerialize()
    {return $this->value;}
}

print "Null -> " . json_encode(new jsontest(null)) . "\n";
print "Array -> " . json_encode(new jsontest(array(1, 2, 3))) . "\n";
print "Assoc. -> " . json_encode(new jsontest(array('a' => 1, 'b' => 3, 'c' => 4))) . "\n";
print "Int -> " . json_encode(new jsontest(5)) . "\n";
print "String -> " . json_encode(new jsontest('Hello, World!')) . "\n";
print "Object -> " . json_encode(new jsontest((object) array('a' => 1, 'b' => 3, 'c' => 4))) . "\n";
// Null -> null
// Array -> [1,2,3]
// Assoc. -> {"a":1,"b":3,"c":4}
// Int -> 5
// String -> "Hello, World!"
// Object -> {"a":1,"b":3,"c":4}

这是一个小的示例，只需要实现 JsonSerializable 接口中的 jsonSerialize() 方法并返回内容就可以实现这个 jsontest 对象的 JSON 编码格式的指定。这里我们只是简单地返回了数据的内容，其实和普通的 json_encode() 没什么太大的区别。下面我们通过一个复杂的例子看一下。

class Student implements JsonSerializable
{
    private $id;
    private $name;
    private $cat;
    private $number;
    private $edu;
    public function __construct($id, $name, $cat = null, $number = null, $edu = null)
    {
        $this->id = $id;
        $this->name = $name;
        $this->cat = $cat;
        $this->number = $number;
        $this->edu = $edu;

    }
    public function jsonSerialize()
    {
        if (!$cat) {
            $this->cat = ['学生'];
        }
        if (!$edu) {
            $this->edu = new stdClass;
        }
        $this->number = '学号：' . (!$number ? mt_rand() : $number);
        if ($this->id == 2) {
            return [
                $this->id,
                $this->name,
                $this->cat,
                $this->number,
                $this->edu,
            ];
        }
        return [
            'id' => $this->id,
            'name' => $this->name,
            'cat' => $this->cat,
            'number' => $this->number,
            'edu' => $this->edu,
        ];
    }
}

var_dump(json_encode(new Student(1, '测试一'), JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE));
// string(82) "{"id":1,"name":"测试一","cat":["学生"],"number":"学号：14017495","edu":{}}"

var_dump(json_encode([new Student(1, '测试一'), new Student(2, '测试二')], JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE));
// string(137) "[{"id":1,"name":"测试一","cat":["学生"],"number":"学号：1713936069","edu":{}},[2,"测试二",["学生"],"学号：499173036",{}]]"

在这个例子中，我们在 jsonSerialize() 做了一些操作。如果数据没有传值，比如为 null 的情况下就给一个默认值。然后在 id 为 2 的情况下返回一个普通数组。大家可以看到最后一段注释中的第二条数据的格式。

这个接口是不是很有意思，相信大家可能对上面的 json_encode() 和 json_decode() 非常熟悉了，但这个接口估计不少人真的是没接触过，是不是非常有意思。

总结

果然，什么事情都怕深挖。不学不知道，一学吓一跳，平常天天用得这么简单的 JSON 操作的相关函数其实还有很多好用的功能是我们不知道的。当然，最主要的还是看看文档，弄明白并且记住一些非常好用的常量参数，另外，抛出异常的功能也是这篇文章的重点内容，建议版本达到的朋友最好都能使用 JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR 来让错误及时抛出，及时发现哦！

测试代码：

https://github.com/zhangyue0503/dev-blog/blob/master/php/202012/source/11.深入学习PHP中的JSON相关函数.php

参考文档：

https://www.php.net/manual/zh/book.json.php

本文转载自：https://juejin.cn/post/7001652041814638600

作者：硬核项目经理

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