Invalid JSON parsing using PHP

Question

I'm pulling a JSON feed that is invalid JSON. It's missing quotes entirely. I've tried a few things, like explode() and str_replace(), to get the string looking a little bit more like valid JSON, but with an associate JSON string inside, it generally gets screwed up.

Here's an example:

id:43015,name:'John Doe',level:15,systems:[{t:6,glr:1242,n:'server',s:185,c:9}],classs:0,subclass:5

Are there any JSON parsers for php out there that can handle invalid JSON like this?

Edit: I'm trying to use json_decode() on this string. It returns nothing.

• Scott M.: i dont believe numbers need quotes in JSON
• hookedonwinter: But the "keys" do, don't they? Like id:43015 should be "id":43015, right?
• Julien Roncaglia: Yes, the problem is that the key names like "id" are not quoted
• Julien Roncaglia: Additionally single quotes around strings are not allowed in JSON
• Andrejs Cainikovs: You are right. Only solution I see is the patch of one of the available parsers.

Answer 1

1. All the quotes should be double quotes " and not single quotes '.
2. All the keys should be quoted.
3. The whole element should be an object.

 function my_json_decode($s) {
 $s = str_replace(
 array('"', "'"),
 array('\"', '"'),
 $s
 );
 $s = preg_replace('/(\w+):/i', '"1円":', $s);
 return json_decode(sprintf('{%s}', $s));
 }

• KXL: Try setting a value to a url or something with a colon in it. This will not work. (ie id:43015,name:'http:John Doe',lev ...)

Answer 2

This regex will do the trick

$json = preg_replace('/([{,])(\s*)([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+?)\s*:/','1ドル"3ドル":',$json);

Answer 3

From my experience Marko's answer doesnt work anymore. For newer php versions use this istead:

$a = "{id:43015,name:'John Doe',level:15,systems:[{t:6,glr:1242,n:'server',s:185,c:988}],classs:0,subclass:5}";
$a = preg_replace('/(,|\{)[ \t\n]*(\w+)[ ]*:[ ]*/','1ドル"2ドル":',$a);
$a = preg_replace('/":\'?([^\[\]\{\}]*?)\'?[ \n\t]*(,"|\}$|\]$|\}\]|\]\}|\}|\])/','":"1ドル"2ドル',$a);
print_r($a);

• Marcos Fernandez Ramos: Support for Arrays: $a = preg_replace('/(,|\{)[ \t\n]*(\w+)[ ]*:[ ]*/','1ドル"2ドル":',$a); $a = preg_replace('/(,|[)[ \t\n]*\'?\"?(\w+)\'?\"?/','1ドル"2ドル"',$a); $a = preg_replace('/":\'?\"?([^[]\{\}]*?)\'?\"?[ \n\t]*(,"|\}$|]$|\}]|]\}|\}|])/','":"1ドル"2ドル',$a)

Answer 4

I know this question is old, but I hope this helps someone.

I had a similar problem, in that I wanted to accept JSON as a user input, but didn't want to require tedious "quotes" around every key. Furthermore, I didn't want to require quotes around the values either, but still parse valid numbers.

The simplest way seemed to be writing a custom parser.

I came up with this, which parses to nested associative / indexed arrays:

function loose_json_decode($json) {
 $rgxjson = '%((?:\{[^\{\}\[\]]*\})|(?:\[[^\{\}\[\]]*\]))%';
 $rgxstr = '%("(?:[^"\\\\]*|\\\\\\\\|\\\\"|\\\\)*"|\'(?:[^\'\\\\]*|\\\\\\\\|\\\\\'|\\\\)*\')%';
 $rgxnum = '%^\s*([+-]?(\d+(\.\d*)?|\d*\.\d+)(e[+-]?\d+)?|0x[0-9a-f]+)\s*$%i';
 $rgxchr1 = '%^'.chr(1).'\\d+'.chr(1).'$%';
 $rgxchr2 = '%^'.chr(2).'\\d+'.chr(2).'$%';
 $chrs = array(chr(2),chr(1));
 $escs = array(chr(2).chr(2),chr(2).chr(1));
 $nodes = array();
 $strings = array();
 # escape use of chr(1)
 $json = str_replace($chrs,$escs,$json);
 # parse out existing strings
 $pieces = preg_split($rgxstr,$json,-1,PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
 for($i=1;$i<count($pieces);$i+=2) {
 $strings []= str_replace($escs,$chrs,str_replace(array('\\\\','\\\'','\\"'),array('\\','\'','"'),substr($pieces[$i],1,-1)));
 $pieces[$i] = chr(2) . (count($strings)-1) . chr(2);
 }
 $json = implode($pieces);
 # parse json
 while(1) {
 $pieces = preg_split($rgxjson,$json,-1,PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
 for($i=1;$i<count($pieces);$i+=2) {
 $nodes []= $pieces[$i];
 $pieces[$i] = chr(1) . (count($nodes)-1) . chr(1);
 }
 $json = implode($pieces);
 if(!preg_match($rgxjson,$json)) break;
 }
 # build associative array
 for($i=0,$l=count($nodes);$i<$l;$i++) {
 $obj = explode(',',substr($nodes[$i],1,-1));
 $arr = $nodes[$i][0] == '[';
 if($arr) {
 for($j=0;$j<count($obj);$j++) {
 if(preg_match($rgxchr1,$obj[$j])) $obj[$j] = $nodes[+substr($obj[$j],1,-1)];
 else if(preg_match($rgxchr2,$obj[$j])) $obj[$j] = $strings[+substr($obj[$j],1,-1)];
 else if(preg_match($rgxnum,$obj[$j])) $obj[$j] = +trim($obj[$j]);
 else $obj[$j] = trim(str_replace($escs,$chrs,$obj[$j]));
 }
 $nodes[$i] = $obj;
 } else {
 $data = array();
 for($j=0;$j<count($obj);$j++) {
 $kv = explode(':',$obj[$j],2);
 if(preg_match($rgxchr1,$kv[0])) $kv[0] = $nodes[+substr($kv[0],1,-1)];
 else if(preg_match($rgxchr2,$kv[0])) $kv[0] = $strings[+substr($kv[0],1,-1)];
 else if(preg_match($rgxnum,$kv[0])) $kv[0] = +trim($kv[0]);
 else $kv[0] = trim(str_replace($escs,$chrs,$kv[0]));
 if(preg_match($rgxchr1,$kv[1])) $kv[1] = $nodes[+substr($kv[1],1,-1)];
 else if(preg_match($rgxchr2,$kv[1])) $kv[1] = $strings[+substr($kv[1],1,-1)];
 else if(preg_match($rgxnum,$kv[1])) $kv[1] = +trim($kv[1]);
 else $kv[1] = trim(str_replace($escs,$chrs,$kv[1]));
 $data[$kv[0]] = $kv[1];
 }
 $nodes[$i] = $data;
 }
 }
 return $nodes[count($nodes)-1];
}

Note that it does not catch errors or bad formatting...

For your situation, it looks like you'd want to add {}'s around it (as json_decode also requires):

$data = loose_json_decode('{' . $json . '}');

which for me yields:

array(6) {
 ["id"]=>
 int(43015)
 ["name"]=>
 string(8) "John Doe"
 ["level"]=>
 int(15)
 ["systems"]=>
 array(1) {
 [0]=>
 array(5) {
 ["t"]=>
 int(6)
 ["glr"]=>
 int(1242)
 ["n"]=>
 string(6) "server"
 ["s"]=>
 int(185)
 ["c"]=>
 int(9)
 }
 }
 ["classs"]=>
 int(0)
 ["subclass"]=>
 int(5)
}

Answer 5

$json = preg_replace('/([{,])(\s*)([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+?)\s*:/','1ドル"3ドル":',$json);// adding->(")
$json = str_replace("'",'"', $json);// replacing->(')

This solution seems to be enough for most common purposes.

Answer 6

I'd say your best bet is to download the source of a JSON decoder (they're not huge) and fiddle with it, especially if you know what's wrong with the JSON you're trying to decode.

The example you provided needs { } around it, too, which may help.

Answer 7

This is my solution to remove trailing/leading/multi commas. It can be combined with other answers that remove single quotes and add quotes around json keys. I realize this would not be relevant to the OP as it deals with other types of invalid json however I just hope to help someone who finds this question on a google search.

function replace_unquoted_text ($json, $f)
{
 $matches = array();
 preg_match_all('/(")(?:(?=(\\\\?))2円.)*?1円/', $json, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
 //echo '<pre>' . json_encode($matches[0]) . '</pre>';
 $matchIndexes = [0];
 foreach ($matches[0] as $match)
 {
 array_push($matchIndexes, $match[1]);
 array_push($matchIndexes, strlen($match[0]) + $match[1]);
 }
 array_push($matchIndexes, strlen($json));
 $components = [];
 for ($n = 0; $n < count($matchIndexes); $n += 2)
 {
 $startIDX = $matchIndexes[$n];
 $finalExclIDX = $matchIndexes[$n + 1];
 //echo $startIDX . ' -> ' . $finalExclIDX . '<br>';
 $len = $finalExclIDX - $startIDX;
 if ($len === 0) continue;
 $prevIDX = ($n === 0) ? 0 : $matchIndexes[$n - 1];
 array_push($components, substr($json, $prevIDX, $startIDX - $prevIDX));
 array_push($components, $f(substr($json, $startIDX, $len)));
 array_push($components, substr($json, $finalExclIDX, ((($n + 1) === count($matchIndexes)) ? count($json) : $matchIndexes[$n + 1]) - $finalExclIDX));
 }
 //echo '<pre>' . json_encode($components) . '</pre>';
 return implode("", $components);
}
function json_decode_lazy ($jsonSnip) {
 return json_decode(fix_lazy_json($jsonSnip));
}
function fix_lazy_json ($json) {
 return replace_unquoted_text($json, 'fix_lazy_snip');
}
function fix_lazy_snip ($jsonSnip) {
 return remove_multi_commas_snip(remove_leading_commas_snip(remove_trailing_commas_snip($jsonSnip)));
}
function remove_leading_commas ($json) {
 return replace_unquoted_text($json, 'remove_leading_commas_snip');
}
function remove_leading_commas_snip ($jsonSnip) {
 return preg_replace('/([{[]\s*)(,\s*)*/', '1ドル', $jsonSnip);
}
function remove_trailing_commas ($json) {
 return replace_unquoted_text($json, 'remove_trailing_commas_snip');
}
function remove_trailing_commas_snip ($jsonSnip) {
 return preg_replace('/(,\s*)*,(\s*[}\]])/', '2ドル', $jsonSnip);
}
function remove_multi_commas ($json) {
 return replace_unquoted_text($json, 'remove_multi_commas_snip');
}
function remove_multi_commas_snip ($jsonSnip) {
 return preg_replace('/(,\s*)+,/', ',', $jsonSnip);
}
json_decode_lazy('[,,{,,,"a":17,,, "b":13,,,,},,,]') // {"a":17, "b":13}

See on repl.it.