Can't decode JSON string in php

Question

I have the following JSON string, i try to decode with php json_decode but $postarray is always NULL, can't work out why this is?

Running on Debian 5.0 Linux php Client API version => 5.0.51a Json version 1.2.1

 $json = '{\"json\":[{\"username\":\"1062576\",\"accountId\":\"45656565\"}]}';

 $postarray = json_decode($json);
 print_r($postarray);

Thanks

Answer 1

Try this:

<?php
$json = stripslashes('{\"json\":[{\"username\":\"1062576\",\"accountId\":\"45656565\"}]}');

$postarray = json_decode($json);
print_r($postarray);

Answer 2

You should enclose it in double quotes.

Answer 3

The string will not be parsed because it is enclosed in single quotes, so the backslashes are literal. If you remove them, use stripslashes, or enclose the string in double quotes, you should have no problems.

Answer 4

The reason to escape double quotes (\") in a string, is if the string is double quoted.

Since you are escaping the double quotes, you should double (not single) quote your string, like this:

<?php
 $json = "{\"json\":[{\"username\":\"1062576\",\"accountId\":\"45656565\"}]}";

 $postarray = json_decode($json);
 print_r($postarray);
?>

Live Example

If you do want to single quote your string, then don't escape the double quotes, or use stripslashes() like Andrei suggested.

You can read about the four ways to specify a string in PHP, and the differences among them, here.