Loading JSON with PHP

Question

I've been using PHP for too long, but I'm new to JavaScript integration in some places.

I'm trying to find the fastest way to pass database information into a page where it can be modified and displayed dynamically in JavaScript.

Right now, I'm looking at loading a JSON with PHP echo statements because it's fast and effective, but I saw that I could use PHP's JSON library (PHP 5.2).

Has anybody tried the new JSON library, and is it better than my earlier method?

Answer 1

Use the library. If you try to generate it manually, I predict with 99% certainty that the resulting text will be invalid in some way. Especially with more esoteric features like Unicode strings or exponential notation.