JSON comes out as only one value

Question

I'm trying to save some settings into my SQL Database and restore them using ajax and php. But the result is only one long JSON Value instead of 3. So i cant access "setting1" for example.

Settings: "{"setting1":"true","setting2":"false","setting3":"10"}"

this is my savemethod. the variables are all set.

 let newSettings = {
        "setting1": setting1_value,
        "setting2": setting2_value,
        "setting3": setting3_value
    };

    newSettings = JSON.stringify(newSettings);


    var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhttp.open("POST", "save-settings.php");
    xhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");


    xhttp.onreadystatechange = function () {
        if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status == 200) {
            console.log(this.responseText);
        }
    };

    xhttp.send(newSettings);

This is the php script to save the settings.

include "connection.php"

$newSettings = file_get_contents("php://input");
$object = json_decode($newSettings, true);

$sql = "UPDATE mytable SET Settings = '$newSettings'";


$result = $connect->query($sql);

And this method should read out the settings from SQL.

include "connection.php";

$sql = "SELECT Settings FROM Leads_Zugriff WHERE atpid = 21001";
$result = $connect->query($sql);


if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    
    while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        print(json_encode($row, true)); 
    }

}

This calls the php script that reads out the settings

function readSettings() {
    var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhttp.onreadystatechange = function () {
        if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status == 200) {
            
            myObj = JSON.parse(this.responseText);
            console.log(myObj);

        }
    };

    xhttp.open("GET", "read-settings.php");
    xhttp.send();
}

**Warning:** You are wide open to [SQL Injections](https://php.net/manual/en/security.database.sql-injection.php) and should use parameterized **prepared statements** instead of manually building your queries. They are provided by [PDO](https://php.net/manual/pdo.prepared-statements.php) or by [MySQLi](https://php.net/manual/mysqli.quickstart.prepared-statements.php). Never trust any kind of input! Even when your queries are executed only by trusted users, [you are still in risk of corrupting your data](http://bobby-tables.com/). [Escaping is not enough!](https://stackoverflow.com/q/5741187) — Dharman, Feb 01 '21 at 16:24

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 01 '21 at 15:48

You're saving $newSettings directly into the database. $newSettings is a JSON string. Then, then you take it out again, you are running json_encode on on it, which re-encodes it as JSON. So you end up with double-encoded data.

If you're going to store raw JSON in the database then you don't need to encode it again before you return it to the browser.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 01 '21 at 15:55

This line here $row = $result->fetch_assoc() returns an associative array as the name suggest. And also you are turning the result into a JSON, that's why you got

Settings: "{"setting1":"true","setting2":"false","setting3":"10"}"

Try to change this line:

print(json_encode($row, true));

into

print($row['Settings'], true);

JSON comes out as only one value

2 Answers2