json_encode is returning null?

Question

For some reason the item "description" returns null with the following code:

<?php
include('db.php');

$result = mysql_query('SELECT * FROM `staff` ORDER BY `id` DESC LIMIT 2') or die(mysql_error());
$rows = array();
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){
    $rows[] = $row;
}

echo json_encode($rows);
?>

Here is the schema for my database:

CREATE TABLE `staff` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `name` longtext COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci,
  `description` longtext COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci,
  `icon` longtext COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci,
  `date` longtext COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci,
  `company` longtext COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci,
  `companyurl` longtext COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci,
  `appurl` longtext COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=5 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci

Here is what is echoed out on the page:

[{"id":"4","name":"Noter 2","description":null,"icon":"http:\/\/images.apple.com\/webapps\/productivity\/images\/noter2_20091223182720-thumb.jpg","date":"1262032317","company":"dBelement, LLC","companyurl":"http:\/\/dbelement.com\/","appurl":"http:\/\/noter2.dbelement.com"},{"id":"3","name":"Noter 2","description":null,"icon":"http:\/\/images.apple.com\/webapps\/productivity\/images\/noter2_20091223182720-thumb.jpg","date":"1262032317","company":"dBelement, LLC","companyurl":"http:\/\/dbelement.com\/","appurl":"http:\/\/noter2.dbelement.com"}]

Any ideas?

Answer 1

AHHH!!! This looks so wrong it hurts my head. Try something more like this...

<?php
include('db.php');

$result = mysql_query('SELECT `id`, `name`, `description`, `icon` FROM `staff` ORDER BY `id` DESC LIMIT 20') or die(mysql_error());
$rows = array();
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){
    $rows[] = $row;
}

echo json_encode($rows);
?>

• When iterating over mysql_num_rows you should use < not <=. You should also cache this value (save it to a variable) instead of having it re-count every loop. Who knows what it's doing under the hood... (might be efficient, I'm not really sure)
• You don't need to copy out each value explicitly like that... you're just making this harder on yourself. If the query is returning more values than you've listed there, list only the ones you want in your SQL.
• mysql_fetch_array returns the values both by key and by int. You not using the indices, so don't fetch em.

If this really is a problem with json_encode, then might I suggest replacing the body of the loop with something like

$rows[] = array_map('htmlentities',$row);

Perhpas there are some special chars in there that are mucking things up...

Answer 2

I bet you are retrieving data in non-utf8 encoding: try to put mysql_query('SET CHARACTER SET utf8') before your SELECT query.

Answer 3

In case you have PHP >= 5.3, you can use json_last_error() to see what the problem is.