json_decode returns NULL after webservice call [duplicate]

Question

There is a strange behaviour with json_encode and json_decode and I can't find a solution:

My php application calls a php web service. The webservice returns json that looks like this:

var_dump($foo):
string(62) "{"action":"set","user":"123123123123","status":"OK"}"

now I like to decode the json in my application:

$data = json_decode($foo, true)

but it returns NULL:

var_dump($data):
NULL

I use php5. The Content-Type of the response from the webservice: "text/html; charset=utf-8" (also tried to use "application/json; charset=utf-8")

What could be the reason?

Pablo · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-06 02:53:19Z

80

Well, i had a similar issue and the problems was the PHP magic quotes in the server... here is my solution:

if(get_magic_quotes_gpc()){
  $param = stripslashes($_POST['param']);
}else{
  $param = $_POST['param'];
}
$param = json_decode($param,true);

edited Oct 6, 2015 at 2:53

answered Feb 4, 2010 at 4:23

Pablo

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10 Comments

Alejandra Over a year ago

Thanks a lot Pablo for your answer!! you saved me a lot of time!!

wiggles Over a year ago

Cheers buddy, didn't think magic quotes would cause such a problem, was nearly at the point of yelling at the monitor. Cheers.

Junaid Qadir Shekhanzai Over a year ago

@Pablo why are u calling stripslashes() when get_magic_quotes_gpc() returns true? it worked for me but after adding (!) before get_magic_quotes_gpc, so that if get_magic_quotes_gpc doesn't return true i call spripslashes()

Pablo Over a year ago

@jey Hey, whatever works is fine. In my case the exact code above fixed my problem

Arman P. Over a year ago

I still need stripslashes even though magic quotes are off. Any explanation?

|

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:34:24Z

75

EDIT: Just did some quick inspection of the string provided by the OP. The small "character" in front of the curly brace is a UTF-8 B(yte) O(rder) M(ark) 0xEF 0xBB 0xBF. I don't know why this byte sequence is displayed as here.

Essentially the system you aquire the data from sends it encoded in UTF-8 with a BOM preceding the data. You should remove the first three bytes from the string before you throw it into json_decode() (a substr($string, 3) will do).

string(62) "{"action":"set","user":"123123123123","status":"OK"}"
            ^
            |
            This is the UTF-8 BOM

As Kuroki Kaze discovered, this character surely is the reason why json_decode fails. The string in its given form is not correctly a JSON formated structure (see RFC 4627)

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:34

CommunityBot

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answered Mar 27, 2009 at 11:18

Stefan Gehrig

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10 Comments

schouk Over a year ago

I don't think so. This is a curly bracket. I think every JSON structure should begin with a curly bracket.

Stefan Gehrig Over a year ago

No not the curly brace - there is a character just before the curly brace.

Andrew Ensley Over a year ago

I think SO's formatting is trying to make this a hard question to answer. :-p

schouk Over a year ago

-> ok, Notepad++ lets me see this character. My FF3 doesn't display it... Many Thanks! :)

Gustavo Straube Over a year ago

@StefanGehrig This is an old question/answer, but I found a better solution to remove the UTF-8 BOM here: stackoverflow.com/a/15423899/1128918. Since it uses preg_replace instead of (mb_)substr it'll handle strings with and without the BOM. It would be nice if you can update your answer. ;)

|

R3tep · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-21 12:57:10Z

36

Print the last json error when debugging.

json_decode( $so, true, 9 );
$json_errors = array(
    JSON_ERROR_NONE => 'No error has occurred',
    JSON_ERROR_DEPTH => 'The maximum stack depth has been exceeded',
    JSON_ERROR_CTRL_CHAR => 'Control character error, possibly incorrectly encoded',
    JSON_ERROR_SYNTAX => 'Syntax error',
);
 echo 'Last error : ', $json_errors[json_last_error()], PHP_EOL, PHP_EOL;

Also use the json.stringify() function to double check your JSON syntax.

edited Sep 21, 2015 at 12:57

R3tep

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answered May 30, 2010 at 23:57

LarryBattle

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1 Comment

kaiser Over a year ago

As one of our users just ran into this: PHP.net is wrong and this was introduced with 5.3, so can confirm @MdOliya

djb · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-25 17:24:21Z

34

None of the solutions above worked for me, but html_entity_decode($json_string) did the trick

answered Oct 25, 2011 at 17:24

djb

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3 Comments

CodeChap Over a year ago

This worked on a json string stored in a mysql utf8 table. I suspect something happens when stored to mysql.

wwv Over a year ago

Thank you!! I spent hours trying different solutions and this is the only thing that worked.

Pepper Over a year ago

This is what worked for me too. Its needed for decoding JSON stored in Wordpress.

Ólafur Waage · Accepted Answer · 2009-03-27 10:15:49Z

20

Try this

$foo = utf8_encode($foo);
$data = json_decode($foo, true);

answered Mar 27, 2009 at 10:15

Ólafur Waage

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2 Comments

schouk Over a year ago

Hi Olafur, utf8_encode writes some strange characters to the beginning of the string. utf8_decode writes a ? to the beginning of the string. This is just a workaround, but it works. I'm sure there is a better way: $foo = utf8_decode($result->data); json_decode(str_replace("?", "", $foo), true);

Timo002 Over a year ago

This worked for me to, all other mentioned answers didn't work.

ikary · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-07 21:53:27Z

10

make sure that if you sent the data by POST / GET, the server has not escape the quotes

$my_array = json_decode(str_replace ('\"','"', $json_string), true);

edited Dec 7, 2011 at 21:53

answered Dec 7, 2011 at 14:46

ikary

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1 Comment

Ryan Burney Over a year ago

Dude...you made my day. This problem was killing me!

Kuroki Kaze · Accepted Answer · 2009-03-27 10:31:59Z

5

"{"action":"set","user":"123123123123","status":"OK"}"

This little apostrophe in the beginning - what is it? First symbol after the doublequote.

answered Mar 27, 2009 at 10:31

Kuroki Kaze

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1 Comment

schouk Over a year ago

I can't find a little apostrophe. First symbol after the doublequote is a curly bracket.

amesh · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-26 12:40:46Z

5

I had the similar problem in a live site. In my local site it was working fine. For fixing the same I Just have added the below code

json_decode(stripslashes($_GET['arr']));

edited Oct 26, 2012 at 12:40

amesh

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answered Jan 5, 2012 at 5:28

mona

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1 Comment

DJ22T Over a year ago

This worked for me, wasn't the BOM in the UTF-8 encode, but some slashes being added.

Ivan Ivanovych Lukyanchuk · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-08 07:55:16Z

5

I just put this

$result = mb_convert_encoding($result,'UTF-8','UTF-8'); 
    $result = json_decode($result);

and it's working

answered Jun 8, 2013 at 7:55

Ivan Ivanovych Lukyanchuk

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Comments

Matija · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-08 08:01:42Z

Yesterday I spent 2 hours on checking and fixing that error finally I found that in JSON string that I wanted to decode were '\' slashes. So the logical thing to do is to use stripslashes function or something similiar to different PL.

Of course the best way is sill to print this var out and see what it becomes after json_decode, if it is null you can also use json_last_error() function to determine the error it will return integer but here are those int described:

0 = JSON_ERROR_NONE

1 = JSON_ERROR_DEPTH

2 = JSON_ERROR_STATE_MISMATCH

3 = JSON_ERROR_CTRL_CHAR

4 = JSON_ERROR_SYNTAX

5 = JSON_ERROR_UTF8

In my case I got output of json_last_error() as number 4 so it is JSON_ERROR_SYNTAX. Then I went and take a look into the string it self which I wanted to convert and it had in last line:

'\'title\' error ...'

After that is really just an easy fix.

$json = json_decode(stripslashes($response));
if (json_last_error() == 0) { // you've got an object in $json}

Victoria · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-23 16:03:37Z

1

I had such problem with storage json-string in MySQL. Don't really know why, but using htmlspecialchars_decode berofe json_decode resolved problem.

edited Jun 23, 2011 at 16:03

answered Jun 23, 2011 at 15:28

Victoria

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Comments

Roey B · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-13 17:12:57Z

1

Non of these solutions worked for me. What DID eventually work was checking the string encoding by saving it to a local file and opening with Notepad++. I found out it was 'UTF-16', so I was able to convert it this way:

$str = mb_convert_encoding($str,'UTF-8','UTF-16');

answered May 13, 2012 at 17:12

Roey B

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Comments

eebbesen · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-29 20:06:18Z

1

Maybe you use thing as $ ${: these chars should be quoted.

edited Mar 29, 2015 at 20:06

eebbesen

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answered Jun 21, 2013 at 20:59

baquiax

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Comments

Henrique Torres · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-16 17:23:17Z

I was having this problem, when I was calling a soap method to obtain my data, and then return a json string, when I tried to do json_decode I just keep getting null.

Since I was using nusoap to do the soap call I tried to just return json string and now I could do a json_decode, since I really neaded to get my data with a SOAP call, what I did was add ob_start() before include nusoap, id did my call genereate json string, and then before returning my json string I did ob_end_clean(), and GOT MY PROBLEM FIXED :)

EXAMPLE

//HRT - SIGNED
//20130116
//verifica se um num assoc deco é valido
ob_start();
require('/nusoap.php');
$aResponse['SimpleIsMemberResult']['IsMember'] = FALSE;
if(!empty($iNumAssociadoTmp))
{
    try
    {
        $client = new soapclientNusoap(PartnerService.svc?wsdl',
         array( 
            // OPTS 
            'trace' => 0,
            'exceptions' => false,
            'cache_wsdl' => WSDL_CACHE_NONE
         )
        );
    //MENSAGEM A ENVIAR
    $sMensagem1 = '
        <SimpleIsMember>
            <request>
                <CheckDigit>'.$iCheckDigitAssociado.'</CheckDigit>
                <Country>Portugal</Country>
                <MemberNumber">'.$iNumAssociadoDeco.'</MemberNumber>
            </request>
        </SimpleIsMember>';
    $aResponse = $client->call('SimpleIsMember',$sMensagem1);
    $aData = array('dados'=>$aResponse->xpto, 'success'=>$aResponse->example);
    }
}
ob_end_clean();
return json_encode($aData);

Orange_shadow · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-06 07:52:56Z

0

I don't know Why? But this work:

$out = curl_exec($curl);
    $out = utf8_encode($out);
    $out = str_replace("?", "", $out);
if (substr($out,1,1)!='{'){
    $out = substr($out,3);
}
    $arResult["questions"] = json_decode($out,true);

without utf8_encode() - Don't work

answered Mar 6, 2013 at 7:52

Orange_shadow

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Comments

Quxflux · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-05 08:53:32Z

0

Check the encoding of your file. I was using netbeans and had to use iso windows 1252 encoding for an old project and netbeans was using this encoding since then for every new file. json_decode will then return NULL. Saving the file again with UTF-8 encoding solved the problem for me.

answered Aug 5, 2013 at 8:53

Quxflux

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Comments

philipbrown · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-05 08:04:43Z

0

In Notepad++, select Encoding (from the top menu) and then ensure that "Encode in UTF-8" is selected.

This will display any characters that shouldn't be in your json that would cause json_decode to fail.

answered Sep 5, 2013 at 8:04

philipbrown

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Comments

John Manning · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-22 01:53:45Z

0

Try using json_encode on the string prior to using json_decode... idk if will work for you but it did for me... I'm using laravel 4 ajaxing through a route param.

$username = "{username: john}";
public function getAjaxSearchName($username)
{
    $username = json_encode($username);
    die(var_dump(json_decode($username, true)));
}

answered Nov 22, 2014 at 1:53

John Manning

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Comments

HNygard · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-05 12:50:57Z

0

You should try out json_last_error_msg(). It will give you the error message and tell you what is wrong. It was introduced in PHP 5.5.

$foo = "{"action":"set","user":"123123123123","status":"OK"}";
$data = json_decode($foo, true);
if($data == null) {
    throw new Exception('Decoding JSON failed with the following message: '
                             . json_last_error_msg());
}

// ... JSON decode was good => Let's use the data

answered Feb 5, 2015 at 12:50

HNygard

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Comments

namal · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-13 09:06:00Z

0

Before applying PHP related solutions, validate your JSON format. That may be the problem. Try below online JSON format validator. If your JSON format is invalid, correct it first, because PHP doesn't decode invalid JSON strings.

https://jsonformatter.org/

edited May 13, 2021 at 9:06

answered May 12, 2021 at 9:10

namal

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Comments

Inderpreet Singh · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-18 04:19:12Z

0

Laravel specific answer: I got the same issue in Laravel. And this did the trick for me

$result = json_decode($result->getContent(), true);

answered Jun 18, 2021 at 4:19

Inderpreet Singh

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3 Comments

mickmackusa Over a year ago

I do not see this as a legitimate resolution for the asked question. It seems, at best, to be the correct answer to a different question. Posts like these make Stack Overflow pages unnecessarily long/bloated.

Inderpreet Singh Over a year ago

@mickmackusa I did not add this to gain points. But to help the fellow PHP developers. Since, Laravel is a famous framework of PHP and I am sure many others like me would end up landing to this page facing the same issue like me. I don't agree you saying this illegitimate. I specifically added in bold that this is Laravel specific answer. This is just to help at the end of the day. I can delete it if it gives you satisfaction. Cheers.

mickmackusa Over a year ago

You can do whatever you like. I have already voted to delete this answer for the reason earlier commented.

ouflak · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-29 21:19:44Z

0

In my case, when I was printing to the screen, json was fine and I copied and decode with json_deocode() function. It was working fine. But, when I was trying to put jsonString directly in the function, it was returning null because quotes were coming like these ". So I used htmlspecialchars_decode() function and now it is working fine. I am new here, so if I am making any mistakes in writing answer then sorry for that. I hope it'll help somebody.

edited Oct 29, 2021 at 21:19

ouflak

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answered Oct 29, 2021 at 16:27

Heymi

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Comments

Tomás Cot · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-08 18:49:26Z

0

Sometimes the problem is generated when the content is compressed, so adding the Accept-Encoding: identity header can solve the problem without having to wrangle with the response.

   $opts = array(
        'http' =>
            array(                    
                'header'  =>
                    array(
                        'Accept-Encoding: identity',
                    ),
            ),           
    );

    $context = stream_context_create($opts);

    $contents = file_get_contents('URL', false, $context);

answered Jul 8, 2022 at 18:49

Tomás Cot

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Comments

harry · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-08 14:04:26Z

-4

i had a similar problem, got it to work after adding '' (single quotes) around the json_encode string. Following from my js file:

var myJsVar  = <?php echo json_encode($var); ?> ;    -------> NOT WORKING  
var myJsVar = '<?php echo json_encode($var); ?>' ;    -------> WORKING

just thought of posting it in case someone stumbles upon this post like me :)

answered Jun 8, 2010 at 14:04

harry

1

1 Comment

Ruan Mendes Over a year ago

This doesn't make sense, you'd have a string that you'd need to eval to use from JS. The question is about the json_encode call failing.

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