How to json_encode array with french accents?

Question

I have an array item with a French accent ([WIPDescription] => Recette Soupe à lOignon Sans Boeuf US). The data is being properly pulled from the database (mysql).

However, when I try to encode this as json using the php built in json_encode it produces a null json value (OS X server: php 5.3.4, json 1.2.1 enabled).

In a Linux server, the description is cut off after the first accent character.

I tried all the json_encode options with no success. Any suggestions?

Thank you.

Answer 1

I found this to be the easiest way to deal with it

echo json_encode($array, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT | JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE | JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES); 

JSON_PRETTY_PRINT - makes is readable
JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE - encodes characters correctly
JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES - gets rid of escape slash '\'
also notice that these option are separated by a pipe '|'

Answer 2

json_encode only wants utf-8. Depending on your character set, you can use iconv or utf8_encode before calling json_encode on your variable. Probably with array_walk_recursive.

As requested, an unfinished way to alter an array, with the assumptions that (1) it doesn't contain objects, and (2) the array keys are in ascii / lower bounds, so can be left as is:

$current_charset = 'ISO-8859-15';//or what it is now array_walk_recursive($array,function(&$value) use ($current_charset){      $value = iconv('UTF-8//TRANSLIT',$current_charset,$value);  });