Problems with encoding Json request

Question

I try to manually build a Json string to send to the client.

{'result':'hhh'} 

When I use

echo json_encode(array('result'=>'hhh'));

It arrives perfectly. But when I do

echo "{'result':'hhh'}";

It isn't

The only difference I find between the two requests is that the first one has:

Content-Length: 9    header

and the second one (which does not work)

Content-Length: 16   header

Both the strings should have been content length: 16!!! I guess it something to do with the combination of ZF and Mootools.

Answer 1

According to the specs, JSON requires double quotes around key names and string values.

echo json_encode(array('result'=>'hhh'));

will output

{"result":"hhh"}

The length of this output is 16 bytes as shown by the following:

echo strlen(json_encode(array('result'=>'hhh')));

outputs "16".

Any JSON decoder that follows the specs will fail or throw an exception when presented with your manually echoed JSON.

Answer 2

It doesn't have problems with UTF-8 so much as UTF-8 is the standard encoding for it. It sounds as if you're echoing something in a different encoding scheme, which breaks, whereas json_encode() is transcoding it for you.