how to create a costume layout for json data returned from mysql database for UTF-8 characters in php

Question

I am trying to create a json representation of mysql data in a restful webservice using php. my returned json should look something like this:

"worktypes" :
[
    {
        "id" : "1",
        "name" : "نوع 1",
        "isactive" : "true"
    },
    {
        "id" : "2",
        "name" : "نوع 2",
        "isactive" : "false"
    }
]

one of my options was to iterate through my result records and echo each line by hand. It was working until I reached utf8 characters shown above (like 'نوع 1') and instead of ending up with something like \Ù\†\Ù\ˆ\Ø\¹ I got unreadable symbols like ÃÂÃÂù çÃÂÃÂ .

If I could use json_encode somehow to create this layout, it would automatically solve this problem;But I don't know how to create such a structure in php that its json_encoded string represents my desired layout.

My other option is to somehow encode these characters myself. But I don't know how to do that either.

Could anyone help me with my problem?

UPDATE: I use a simple echo in my webservice when I get unusual characters like :

$result = array("1" => "نوع 1")
echo $result;

//results in 'ÙÙع 1' when called using webservice

Answer 1

The equivalent PHP array to what you have given is:

$x = array(
    "worktypes" => array( 
        array(
            "id" => "1",
            "name" => "نوع 1",
            "isactive" => "true"
        ),
        array(
            "id" => "2",
            "name" => "نوع 2",
            "isactive" => "false"
        )
    )
);

You can then use json_encode .

Note that you may still see escaped characters, but the browser should be able to handle unescaping them when it parses the JSON.