PHP 8.1: implementing JSON Encoding and Special Characters in UTF-8 Strings
I'm having trouble with I'm stuck on something that should probably be simple. Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue that's driving me crazy. I'm working with a question when trying to encode an array containing UTF-8 strings with special characters into JSON using PHP 8.1. The array contains names with emojis and accented characters, and when I use `json_encode()`, I get unexpected results. For example, here’s the code I’m using: ```php $data = [ 'name' => 'José 🎉', 'city' => 'São Paulo', 'message' => 'Hello, world! 👋' ]; $json = json_encode($data, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE); if (json_last_error() !== JSON_ERROR_NONE) { echo 'JSON behavior: ' . json_last_error_msg(); } else { echo $json; } ``` When I run this, the output for `name` is `"José 🎉"`, instead of just `"José 🎉"`. I expected it to preserve the emojis and accented characters since I’m using the `JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE` flag. I've also verified that the input strings are correctly encoded in UTF-8 using `mb_check_encoding()`, and it returns true. But still, the output seems to escape the characters rather than display them as intended. I've tried different combinations of flags with `json_encode()`, but nothing seems to work. Am I missing something, or is there a configuration scenario affecting the JSON output? Any guidance would be appreciated! For context: I'm using Php on Linux. What's the correct way to implement this? Am I approaching this the right way? I've been using Php for about a year now. Is there a better approach?