Converting Object to JSON and JSON to Object in PHP, (library like Gson for Java)

Question

I am developing a web application in PHP,

I need to transfer many objects from server as JSON string, is there any library existing for PHP to convert object to JSON and JSON String to Objec, like Gson library for Java.

Answer 1

This should do the trick!

// convert object => json $json = json_encode($myObject);  // convert json => object $obj = json_decode($json); 

Here's an example

$foo = new StdClass(); $foo->hello = "world"; $foo->bar = "baz";  $json = json_encode($foo); echo $json; //=> {"hello":"world","bar":"baz"}  print_r(json_decode($json)); // stdClass Object // ( //   [hello] => world //   [bar] => baz // ) 

If you want the output as an Array instead of an Object, pass true to json_decode

print_r(json_decode($json, true)); // Array // ( //   [hello] => world //   [bar] => baz // )     

More about json_encode()

See also: json_decode()

Answer 2

for more extendability for large scale apps use oop style with encapsulated fields.

Simple way :-

  class Fruit implements JsonSerializable {          private $type = 'Apple', $lastEaten = null;          public function __construct() {             $this->lastEaten = new DateTime();         }          public function jsonSerialize() {             return [                 'category' => $this->type,                 'EatenTime' => $this->lastEaten->format(DateTime::ISO8601)             ];         }     } 

echo json_encode(new Fruit()); //which outputs:

{"category":"Apple","EatenTime":"2013-01-31T11:17:07-0500"} 

Real Gson on PHP :-

1. http://jmsyst.com/libs/serializer
2. http://symfony.com/doc/current/components/serializer.html
3. http://framework.zend.com/manual/current/en/modules/zend.serializer.html
4. http://fractal.thephpleague.com/ - serialize only