JSON Data is Enclosed in Brackets Why?

Question

my JSON data comes back enclosed in brackets for example: [{"cust_id":"109"}]. Why is that? I've tried mysql_fetch_row and mysql_fetch_object. Do I need to substring to remove the brackets?

Also, how can I display a JSON object in javaScript? In Firebug, if I hard-code the JSON data, I see a value as JSON, but alert() won't show it.

Thank you.

 $rows = array();
  while($r = mysql_fetch_assoc($rs)) {
    $rows[] = $r;
  }
  echo json_encode($rows);

Answer 1

That means an array consisting of excactly one element.

Answer 2

The brackets indicate an array in JavaScript. If you only want one item you have to encode the first (and single) entry of your array specifically:

$rows = array();
while($r = mysql_fetch_assoc($rs)) 
{
    $rows[] = $r;
}
echo json_encode($rows[0]);