json_decode returns JSON_ERROR_SYNTAX but online formatter says the JSON is OK

Question

I got a very strange problem.

I have a JSON webservice.

When i check it with this website http://www.freeformatter.com/json-formatter.html#ad-output

Everything is OK.

But when i load my JSON with this code :

  $data = file_get_contents('http://www.mywebservice');  if(!empty($data)) {      $obj = json_decode($data);   switch (json_last_error()) {     case JSON_ERROR_NONE:         echo ' - JSON_ERROR_NONE';     break;     case JSON_ERROR_DEPTH:         echo ' - JSON_ERROR_DEPTH';     break;     case JSON_ERROR_STATE_MISMATCH:         echo ' - JSON_ERROR_STATE_MISMATCH';     break;     case JSON_ERROR_CTRL_CHAR:         echo ' -  JSON_ERROR_CTRL_CHAR';     break;     case JSON_ERROR_SYNTAX:         echo "\r\n\r\n - SYNTAX ERROR \r\n\r\n";     break;     case JSON_ERROR_UTF8:         echo ' - JSON_ERROR_UTF8';     break;     default:         echo ' - Unknown erro';     break; } 

I got the error : SYNTAX ERROR

WHICH IS NOT HELP FULL AT ALL.

It is a nightmare.

I see that with PHP 5.5 i could use this function : http://php.net/manual/en/function.json-last-error-msg.php

(but i did not succeed to install PHP 5.5 yet, and i m not sure this function will give me more detail)

Answer 1

I faced the same issue, actually there are some hidden characters unseen and you need to remove it. Here's a global code that works for many cases:

<?php $checkLogin = file_get_contents("http://yourwebsite.com/JsonData");  // This will remove unwanted characters. // Check http://www.php.net/chr for details for ($i = 0; $i <= 31; ++$i) {      $checkLogin = str_replace(chr($i), "", $checkLogin);  } $checkLogin = str_replace(chr(127), "", $checkLogin);  // This is the most common part // Some file begins with 'efbbbf' to mark the beginning of the file. (binary level) // here we detect it and we remove it, basically it's the first 3 characters  if (0 === strpos(bin2hex($checkLogin), 'efbbbf')) {    $checkLogin = substr($checkLogin, 3); }  $checkLogin = json_decode( $checkLogin ); print_r($checkLogin); ?> 

Answer 2

Removing the BOM (Byte Order Mark) is often-times the solution you need:

function removeBOM($data) {     if (0 === strpos(bin2hex($data), 'efbbbf')) {        return substr($data, 3);     }     return $data; } 

You shouldn't have a BOM, but if it's there, it is invisible so you won't see it!!

see W3C on BOM's in HTML

use BOM Cleaner if you have lot's of files to fix.