json_encode after array_unique returning associative array

Question

$a = array("pear","apple","apple","ball","cat");
$u = array_unique($a);
echo json_encode($u);

The output appears as: {"0":"pear","1":"apple","3":"ball","4":"cat"}

I need a non-associative array as output as: ["apple","ball","cat","pear"].

Answer 1

Reindex the array with array_values before encoding it:

echo json_encode(array_values($u));