Is it a JSON string? Get array in PHP

Question

I import data from WordPress. It is a WebDirectory 2.0 that saves the data as a "strange" string in a database.

Example:

s:95:"a:2:{s:3:"url";s:39:"http://www.google.com/";s:4:"text";s:13:"Website";}";

I have tried json_decode() and unserialize(). Both do not work. They return the string as it is. I can see, this is an array with two values, but how this can be parsed in PHP? In what format this string can be?

It looks like a string that has been serialized twice, so it must be unserialized twice. — KIKO Software
– KIKO Software, Commented Feb 10, 2021 at 22:57

Felippe Duarte · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-10 23:33:20Z

1

If you have this:

echo serialize(serialize(['url'=>'http://www.google.com/','text'=>'Website']));

The output will be

s:71:"a:2:{s:3:"url";s:22:"http://www.google.com/";s:4:"text";s:7:"Website";}";

But what you have is

s:95:"a:2:{s:3:"url";s:39:"http://www.google.com/";s:4:"text";s:13:"Website";}";

Which is different. See, s:95 != s:71, among other elements.

Or this is not a real data or by some reason it's generating extra chars, and causing the problem. I would check how the encoding from both PHP and database to see if all matches.

answered Feb 10, 2021 at 23:33

Felippe Duarte

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1 Comment

Thomas Sablik Over a year ago

I think OP changed the string to remove sensitive data.

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