PHP 8.1 - implementing JSON encoding of objects containing private properties
I'm testing a new approach and I'm upgrading from an older version and I'm testing a new approach and I'm relatively new to this, so bear with me... I'm working with a question when trying to encode an object with private properties to JSON using `json_encode` in PHP 8.1. I have a class that looks like this: ```php class User { private $name; private $email; public function __construct($name, $email) { $this->name = $name; $this->email = $email; } } $user = new User('John Doe', 'john@example.com'); $json = json_encode($user); ``` When I run this code, the output of `$json` is `null`, and I get the behavior `json_encode(): Invalid UTF-8 sequence` in my behavior logs. I have tried using `var_dump` to inspect the `$user` object, and it correctly shows the properties, but they are not accessible outside the class due to their private visibility. I even considered implementing a `JsonSerializable` interface to customize the JSON representation, but I’m unsure how to handle this effectively. Here’s what I attempted: ```php class User implements JsonSerializable { private $name; private $email; public function __construct($name, $email) { $this->name = $name; $this->email = $email; } public function jsonSerialize() { return [ 'name' => $this->name, 'email' => $this->email, ]; } } ``` After making this change, I expected `json_encode($user)` to work, but I still get the same `null` output. I also checked for potential UTF-8 issues in the strings I'm using, but everything appears fine. What could be causing this scenario, and how can I correctly serialize an object with private properties to JSON in PHP 8.1? Any insights would be greatly appreciated! Has anyone else encountered this? This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I'm working in a Linux environment. Is this even possible? The project is a web app built with Php. Any ideas how to fix this?