json_decode() returns null issues

Question

Hey all,

I've an issue with my JSON. It works returns correctly in PHP 5.3 (so I can't use json_last_error()), and it returns successfully when I copy string explicitly into json_decode (json_decode('{...}'). It only returns null in when I pass the result as a variable and I'm using php 5.2, which is what I need it for.

The output comes from JSON logging in PHPUnit:

[
    {
        "event": "suiteStart",
        "suite": "",
        "tests": 2
    },
    {
        "event": "suiteStart",
        "suite": "TagTestCase",
        "tests": 2
    },
    {
        "event": "test",
        "suite": "TagTestCase",
        "test": "TagTestCase::test_it",
        "status": "fail",
        "time": 0.00248718261719,
        "trace": [
            {
                "file": "\/UnitTest\/PHPUnit.php",
                "line": 98,
                "function": "run",
                "class": "PHPUnit_Framework_TestSuite",
                "type": "->",
                "args": [
                    {

                    }
                ]
            },
            {
                "file": "\/UnitTest\/PHPUnit.php",
                "line": 116,
                "function": "run",
                "class": "PHPUnit",
                "type": "->",
                "args": [

                ]
            },
            {
                "file": "\/UnitTest\/PHPUnit.php",
                "line": 212,
                "function": "__tostring",
                "class": "PHPUnit",
                "type": "->",
                "args": [

                ]
            }
        ],
        "message": "false assertionzzzzz.\nFailed asserting that <boolean:false> is true."
    },
    {
        "event": "test",
        "suite": "TagTestCase",
        "test": "TagTestCase::test_two",
        "status": "pass",
        "time": 0.00182914733887,
        "trace": [

        ],
        "message": ""
    }
]

EDIT: These are the paths, I've been exploring - maybe you are a better explorer.. Three possible paths that could help:

• What is different about json_decode() in php 5.2 then 5.3? what did they change?
• Someone else using JSON from PHPUnit, and how they parse it.
• What changes when you have it in a variable vs. printing it to screen and copying it into json_decode()

Any help would be greatly(!) appreciated.

Thanks! Matt

Answer 1

try to set the error reporting in ALL, the json_decode() should give you a notice in the offset where the conversion fails.

Answer 2

What a HORRENDOUS debug session.. well there's good news.. I figured it out..

I started looking at it using AJAX and logging it with Firebug... and it turns out json_decode (or eval by the way) cannot handle ", which is what PHPUnit sends back (Come on Sebastian!), so to fix it:

$json = str_replace('"', '"', $json);

Now I thought they were the same.. maybe someone can enlighten me..

Answer 3

When I use:

phpunit --log-json file.json <test_file>

(using PHPUnit 3.4.13), The file that it creates does not appear to contain valid JSON,

the json file contains "json" which looks something like:

{...}{...}{...}{...}

Instead of what I would expect to see:

[{...},{...},{...},{...}]

Not sure if the is the same problem that you're seeing, your sample JSON output in the question appears to be more valid that what I'm seeing.

Once adding the missing commas and brackets, it can be parsed with json_decode() on PHP 5.2.10 or PHP 5.3.2.