What is JSON?
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a textual format for representing structured data based on the syntax of a JavaScript object. JSON is widely used for data exchange between applications written in many programming languages, including PHP, JavaScript, Java, C++, C#, Go, Python, and many more.JSON file names use the .json file extension.
PHP JSON Encode Function Syntax
To convert a PHP array or object to a JSON representation, you can use the json_encode() function:
Where:
- value: required parameter, specifies the value to encode
- options (Optional): specifies a bitmask that determines how JSON objects will be converted to PHP objects. The decode function supports the following bitmasks: JSON_FORCE_OBJECT, JSON_HEX_QUOT, JSON_HEX_TAG, JSON_HEX_AMP, JSON_HEX_APOS, JSON_INVALID_UTF8_IGNORE, JSON_INVALID_UTF8_SUBSTITUTE, JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK, JSON_PARTIAL_OUTPUT_ON_ERROR, JSON_PRESERVE_ZERO_FRACTION, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT, JSON_UNESCAPED_LINE_TERMINATORS, JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR. You can learn more about JSON encoding bitmasks in the PHP documentation.
- depth (Optional): defines the maximum depth, the value must be greater than zero