Invalid JSON Escape Sequence in String

Question

I am working with a MySQL db that has encoded polygon for google maps. When I try to return the query as json, jsonlint complains.. I am not sure why its complaining , I did try escaping the "}" in the latlon but still get the same error.

Parse error on line 20:
...          "latlon": "}ciuF|a|pNcUr@d@es@
-----------------------^
Expecting 'STRING', 'NUMBER', 'NULL', 'TRUE', 'FALSE', '{', '['

My json is:

{
    "maps": [
        {
            "group_id": "0",
            "user_id": "113",
            "group_name": "",
            "note": "",
            "field_id": "",
            "field_name": "West Pasture",
            "field_notes": "",
            "date_created": "12/31/2012",
            "acres": ""
        }
    ],
    "polygon": [
        {
            "polygon_id": "",
            "field_id": "1",
            "acres": "92",
            "latlon": "}ciuF|a|pNcUr@d@es@fIHXaNtCn@UxCjMlApAfFuBpI}E\ChJdEl@xAtE"
        }
    ]
}

That error suggest there's a problem earlier in the json, not on that line.. — Evert
– Evert, Commented Jan 3, 2013 at 12:46

Dennis · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-03 12:51:26Z

18

The problem is that there is a slash before the C which is not a valid escape sequence.

"}ciuF|a|pNcUr@d@es@fIHXaNtCn@UxCjMlApAfFuBpI}E\ChJdEl@xAtE"

JSON.parse('"\\C"');

This will give you a syntax error because it is trying to parse the string \C. If you want a literal \ in your property's value, you need to escape it.

"latlon": "}ciuF|a|pNcUr@d@es@fIHXaNtCn@UxCjMlApAfFuBpI}E\\ChJdEl@xAtE"

The relevant section from the official grammar:

string
    ""
    " chars "
chars
    char
    char chars
char
    any-Unicode-character-
        except-"-or-\-or-
        control-character
    \"
    \\
    \/
    \b
    \f
    \n
    \r
    \t
    \u four-hex-digits

answered Jan 3, 2013 at 12:51

Dennis

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3 Comments

phpisuber01 Over a year ago

Playing around this with myself, it took me 3 slashes to get it to decode in php. ie. \\\C

Dennis Over a year ago

I figured it out by using: <pre>$tmp = str_replace('"', '\"', $maps['lat_lon']); $tmp = str_replace('\\', '\\\\', $tmp);</pre> Are there any other special characters I need to be escaping that could be in a json string?

Dennis Over a year ago

Are you concatenating your own string or are you using json_encode?

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