How can I decode json in PHP 5.1?

Question

json_decode function is not part of PHP 5.1, so I cannot use it. Is there any other function for this version?

Answer 1

Before PHP 5.2, you can use the JSON PECL extension.

In fact, it is the extension that has been integrated into PHP 5.2 (quoting) :

As of PHP 5.2.0, the JSON extension is bundled and compiled into PHP by default.

Some other solutions would be to use some component developped in PHP.

Some time ago (about one year ago), I used the Zend_Json component of Zend Framework, with PHP 5.1.

Even if Zend Framework requires PHP 5.2, that component can be extracted (I think it depends only on one other component -- maybe Zend_Exception, or something like that) -- and one year ago, it was possible to use it with PHP 5.1.

The official JSON website also links to several PHP-based or PHP-oriented components -- you might want to take a look at that list.

Answer 2

I ran into the same issue running PHP 5.1.6, but I couldn't upgrade or install extensions on my client's server. To make matters worse, the JSON.org site was down when I needed a solution but fortunately this file on Google Code worked perfectly! I would have preferred to actually define json_encode/json_decode, but calling fromJSON() worked just fine.

http://code.google.com/p/simplejson-php/