json_decode + json_encode combo not creating original JSON

Question

I have some JSON that I got through an API call, and I run json_decode on it, grab an array from it, then re-encode it with json_encode . The result however is not the same JSON; it's messing up with the URLs. How do I make it encode properly?

original

{"created_at":"Mon, 19 Mar 2012 01:34:41 +0000","entities":{"hashtags":[{"text":"stanford","indices":[23,32]}],"urls":[{"url":"http:\/\/t.co\/Of4z6jKG","expanded_url":"http:\/\/360.io\/5sZc2T","display_url":"360.io\/5sZc2T","indices":[33,53]}],"user_mentions":[]},"from_user":"rayfk","from_user_id":335143881,"from_user_id_str":"335143881","from_user_name":"Raymond Kennedy","geo":{"coordinates":[37.4227,-122.1753],"type":"Point"},"id":181554251733020673,"id_str":"181554251733020673","iso_language_code":"en","metadata":{"result_type":"recent"},"profile_image_url":"http:\/\/a0.twimg.com\/profile_images\/1468102095\/image_normal.jpg","profile_image_url_https":"https:\/\/si0.twimg.com\/profile_images\/1468102095\/image_normal.jpg","source":"<a href="http:\/\/www.occipital.com\/360\/app" rel="nofollow">360 Panorama<\/a>","text":"View from mid lake log #stanford http:\/\/t.co\/Of4z6jKG","to_user":null,"to_user_id":null,"to_user_id_str":null,"to_user_name":null}

after decode/encode combo

{"created_at":"Mon, 19 Mar 2012 01:34:41 +0000","entities":{"hashtags":[{"text":"stanford","indices":[23,32]}],"urls":[{"url":"http:\/\/t.co\/Of4z6jKG","expanded_url":"http:\/\/360.io\/5sZc2T","display_url":"360.io\/5sZc2T","indices":[33,53]}],"user_mentions":[]},"from_user":"rayfk","from_user_id":335143881,"from_user_id_str":"335143881","from_user_name":"Raymond Kennedy","geo":{"coordinates":[37.4227,-122.1753],"type":"Point"},"id":181554251733020673,"id_str":"181554251733020673","iso_language_code":"en","metadata":{"result_type":"recent"},"profile_image_url":"http:\/\/a0.twimg.com\/profile_images\/1468102095\/image_normal.jpg","profile_image_url_https":"https:\/\/si0.twimg.com\/profile_images\/1468102095\/image_normal.jpg","source":"<a href="http:\/\/www.occipital.com\/360\/app" rel="nofollow">360 Panorama<\/a>","text":"View from mid lake log #stanford http:\/\/t.co\/Of4z6jKG","to_user":null,"to_user_id":null,"to_user_id_str":null,"to_user_name":null}

Those are the full snippets, but the culprit is this:

original "source":"<a href="http:\\/\\/www.occipital.com\\/360\\/app" rel="nofollow">360 Panorama<\\/a>"

after "source":"<a href="http:\\/\\/www.occipital.com\\/360\\/app" rel="nofollow">360 Panorama<\\/a>"

Answer 1

I'm not sure what is causing it but you can correct it by applying the html_entity_decode() function to the after version. This will change things such as < or " back to their original form.

Depending on how it affects your quoting, there are a few flags you can pass it as well to get the result you need.

• ENT_COMPAT: Will convert double-quotes and leave single-quotes alone.
• ENT_QUOTES: Will convert both double and single quotes.
• ENT_NOQUOTES: Will leave both double and single quotes unconverted.

[EDIT]

Run your broken JSON through this function:

function fixDoubleQuotedJSON($broken_json)
{
   return str_replace('"','\\"',$broken_json);
}

Answer 2

http://codepad.org/DMkAS2iR

They seem to be equal, except at an unexcepted place:

before: "id":181554251733020673,"id_str"
after:  "id":181554251733020000,"id_str"

Those id's won't really match after "lossless" json transforms, and JSON_BIGINT_AS_STRING option is supported from PHP 5.4.

Codepad's php version is 5.2.5 by the way;