How to get around SerializeJSON in CF8 encoding non printable characters?

Question

SerializeJSON creates JSON with non printable characters (i.e. ASCII 21)

This is invalid JSON. How can I get round this.

Would a regex removing the non printable characters work?

What regex would remove non printable characters?

Answer 1

Well, this simple solution was created for cffeed, but your problem is very similar.

First I've tried to use Java library StringEscapeUtils (Commons Lang API), but it didn't escaped my contents properly. Though it is recommended for XML.

So, this cfc method works for me. Maybe will help you too.

<cffunction name="cleanXmlString" access="public" returntype="any" output="false" hint="Replace non-valid XML characters">
    <cfargument name="dirty" type="string" required="true" hint="Input string">
    <cfset var cleaned = "" />
    <cfset var patterns = "" />
    <cfset var replaces = "" />

    <cfset patterns = chr(8216) & "," & chr(8217) & "," & chr(8220) & "," & chr(8221) & "," & chr(8212) & "," & chr(8213) & "," & chr(8230) />
    <cfset patterns = patterns & "," & chr(1) & "," & chr(2) & "," & chr(3) & "," & chr(4) & "," & chr(5) & "," & chr(6) & "," & chr(7) & "," & chr(8) />
    <cfset patterns = patterns & "," & chr(14) & "," & chr(15) & "," & chr(16) & "," & chr(17) & "," & chr(18) & "," & chr(19) />
    <cfset patterns = patterns & "," & chr(20) & "," & chr(21) & "," & chr(22) & "," & chr(23) & "," & chr(24) & "," & chr(25) />
    <cfset patterns = patterns & "," & chr(26) & "," & chr(27) & "," & chr(28) & "," & chr(29) & "," & chr(30) & "," & chr(31) />

    <cfset replaces = replaces & "',',"","",--,--,..." />
    <cfset replaces = replaces & ",-, , , , , , , " />
    <cfset replaces = replaces & ", , , , , , " />
    <cfset replaces = replaces & ", , , , , , " />
    <cfset replaces = replaces & ", , , , , , " />

    <cfset cleaned = ReplaceList(arguments.dirty, patterns, replaces) />

    <cfreturn cleaned />

</cffunction>