Malformed JSON string, encoding issue?

Question

I am requesting a web service and getting a JSON data as shown below. However, I keep getting the following error:

malformed JSON string, neither array, object, number, string or atom, at character offset 0 (before "\x{feff}\x{feff}{"ur...") at /usr/share/perl5/JSON/Any.pm

http request:

Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:41:03 GMT
Server: nginx/0.7.67
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Client-Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:41:03 GMT
Client-Peer: 127.0.1.1:80
Client-Response-Num: 1
Client-Transfer-Encoding: chunked

json data:

{"url":"http:\/\/example.com\/service\/rest.htm?req_data=<auth_req><request_token>20130416f186a9c0480e2501e73d19dbcd79d354<\/request_token> <\/auth_req>&user=208860&service=auth.execute&sid=0001&format=xml&v=2.0& sign=pn9xjQjzTgQuAMarLDtiZCMaGZm4bSo8aUTGtkSt1GrxPGtK29oIL1DgHveVMwf2n7rxLHzyWrNd%2BYU6%2BxZCzs56JkMtxQMPxEJ%2Bu9Eqk5SRL6EAjWMeKheix5frPyHi0hQ4nnbiVm%2Bx3bF0KFq3cORvVCeq8wBoZU1HQXD%2BuuY%3D"}

I suspect some kind of encoding issue because the JSON string validates fine in jslint JSON validator. But I don't know what else to look for. Please help, thanks.

Can you show the script that's generating the error?

RickF
– RickF

2013-04-16 15:48:59 +00:00
Commented Apr 16, 2013 at 15:48 — RickF
– RickF, Commented Apr 16, 2013 at 15:48

choroba · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-16 10:52:41Z

2

\x{feff} is a BOM (Byte Order Mark). I am not sure whether it is allowed at the beginning of a JSON, but it definitely should not be repeated.

answered Apr 16, 2013 at 10:52

choroba

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Comments

perlwle · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-16 16:03:56Z

1

thanks to choroba for prompting me to look for the BOM. Greped 3rd party library files which generates the url and surely found the BOM in them.

grep -rl $'\xEF\xBB\xBF' . # Got BOM?
perl -pi -nle 's/^\xEF\xBB\xBF//' *.lib # remove them!

cheers.

answered Apr 16, 2013 at 16:03

perlwle

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