PHP 8.2: implementing JSON encoding float values leading to unexpected string outputs
Does anyone know how to Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue that's driving me crazy... Quick question that's been bugging me - I'm working with PHP 8.2 and working with unexpected behavior when encoding an associative array to JSON... Specifically, when I try to encode float values, they are being converted to strings in the resulting JSON output, which is causing issues with my JavaScript front end that expects number types. Here's a simplified version of my code: ```php $data = [ 'id' => 1, 'price' => 19.99, 'discount' => 0.2, ]; $json = json_encode($data); echo $json; ``` When I output this, the JSON result is: ```json {"id":1,"price":"19.99","discount":"0.2"} ``` Notice how the `price` and `discount` values are wrapped in quotes, indicating they are being treated as strings. I've tried using `JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK` as follows: ```php $json = json_encode($data, JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK); ``` However, this doesn't seem to have any effect. I still get the same JSON output. I've also checked the values in the array, and they are indeed floats. I'm not sure if this behavior is a bug with PHP 8.2 or if I'm missing something in my understanding of how `json_encode` works. Any insights or solutions would be greatly appreciated! Additionally, in the context of performance, I'm concerned about how consistent data types affect the serialization/deserialization process in my application. Should I consider coercing types before encoding? What are the best practices here? I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. I'm working on a application that needs to handle this. What am I doing wrong? What's the best practice here? The stack includes Php and several other technologies. I'd be grateful for any help. My team is using Php for this CLI tool. Is there a better approach?