How to remove escaping special characters from json_encode output

Question

I have some URLs in my database, and I want to print them as JSON using PHP. How can I get the desired format, without escaping backslashes, in my JSON object?

// Business to get data
...
// print JSON data
echo json_encode($customer, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);

This sounds like a typical xy problem. Why would you want to print the json unescaped? Javascript have a command for consuming JSON, it's called JSON.parse, and it allows you to use json and transform it into javascript objects. — Félix Adriyel Gagnon-Grenier, Mar 11 '17 at 16:03
Possible duplicate of [json\_encode() escaping forward slashes](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10210338/json-encode-escaping-forward-slashes) — Karol S, Mar 12 '17 at 00:58
hi @FélixGagnon-Grenier i will consume the json output in Android Project using java , i will not use javascript as a client — James, Mar 13 '17 at 09:32
@Ali then use Java way to parse JSON http://stackoverflow.com/a/18998203/576767. — Félix Adriyel Gagnon-Grenier, Mar 13 '17 at 16:03

score 16 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 11 '17 at 19:05

This sounds like a typical XY problem. There are very few situations where you would want to unescape JSON (and I say this to be polite, I can't think of a single one) and in your case, your code suggests you echo that JSON so it can be consumed elsewhere.

Elsewhere probably means on a client with JavaScript. There is the JSON.parse function that does exactly what you want, and more: it transforms JSON (correct JSON, that still has its escaping backslashes) into native JavaScript object.

echo json_encode(["url" => "http://stackoverflow.com"]);
// {"url":"http:\/\/stackoverflow.com"}

// out of scope, but response is the response from your ajax call
var parsedJson = JSON.parse(response);
console.log(parsedJson.url);
// http://stackoverflow.com

This is how you actually get your unescaped string from JSON.

How to remove escaping special characters from json_encode output

1 Answers1