PHP json_decode data format

Question

my json data that names are between ("") is working as following.

var_dump(json_decode('{"a":"foo","b":"bar"}', true));

but names are not between ("") is not working:

var_dump(json_decode('{a:"foo",b:"bar"}', true)) ;

my json data is coming from another server like this:

{a:"foo",b:"bar"}

and that json created by php with json_encode.

$rows = array();
while($r = mysqli_fetch_assoc($sql)) {
 $rows[] = $r;
}
return json_encode($rows)

but json_decode returning NULL for this object.

• mario: That's not JSON then, but JavaScript Object Literals (JSOL). PHPs plain json_decode() does not support it. Use a more specific parser, or one of the unreliable patch workarounds.
• barteloma: but that is created by json_encode.
• mario: No, it's certainly not. Two alternatives: How to parse this json with php?
• barteloma: ok thanks your answer validated my json

Answer 1

Looks like you will have to modify the string before parsing it because that isn't valid JSON. You can check it with a site like this.

http://jsonlint.com/