ID: 46600
Updated by: scottmac@php.net
Reported By: Matt at mpcm dot com
-Status: Verified
+Status: Feedback
Bug Type: JSON related
Operating System: *
PHP Version: 5CVS, 6CVS (2008-11-18)
Previous Comments:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2008-12-18 03:27:25] scottmac@php.net
I'm not even sure what the bug is? You can't have an empty property
name hence the use of "_empty_".
The key collision thing is a very edge case, are you saying you ran
into this in a real life usage?
The best course of action may be to have this documented on the
json_encode() and json_decode() pages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2008-12-04 20:39:13] Matt at mpcm dot com
Thanx for the reply magicaltux, Feature is an interesting word
considering the possible key collision.
There are other ways to get things that are not strictly objects to
behave that way. Overloading (like example #1 at
http://us.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.overloading.php).
It works
well enough as long as you also make it iterate correctly.
What I am suggesting is that it is better to fail in decoding into an
object, than to silently cause a key collision.
Or alternatively, produce an overloaded object which can have these
keys (by default, or passed optional flag) from json_decode. It's an
opinion, but a wrapper gets me where I need to be for now, and I'm
pretty sure this is an edge case.
$a = '{"":"a","_empty_":"b"}';
echo json_encode(json_decode($a));
echo json_encode(json_decode($a, true));
output:
{"_empty_":"b"}
{"":"a","_empty_":"b"}
for some values:
$a != json_encode(json_decode($a));
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2008-12-04 10:44:29] magicaltux@php.net
I believe this is not a bug, but a feature.
An object *can't* have an empty property (while an array can).
If you want to use json_decode() with json containing empty key, either
access those empty key using special keyword "_empty_", or put the
optionnal $assoc parameter of json_decode() to true to get result as an
array.
If you want objects to support empty keys, I believe this is not going
to happen soon, as this is enforced by a specific error message.
Fatal error: Cannot access empty property in php shell code on line 1
Please note that a property name starting with NULL character won't
work either.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2008-11-18 17:35:30] matt at mpcm dot com
The language seems to create a key that cannot be reached, so even if
this bug is fixed, we am still facing a broader issue it seems.
<?
$key = "";
$o = (object) array($key=>4,"example"=>8);
var_dump($o);
print 'blank key test:' . (isset($o->$key)?'true':'false');
print $o->{$key};
var_dump($o->$key);
?>
output:
object(stdClass)#1 (2) {
[""]=>
int(4)
["example"]=>
int(8)
}
blank key test:false<br />
<b>Fatal error</b>: Cannot access empty property in
<b>PHPDocument1</b> on line <b>8</b><br />
All throws Notice: line 4 - Illegal member variable name
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2008-11-18 15:43:05] matt at mpcm dot com
All the work arounds I am looking at are throwing Error Text: Illegal
member variable name when I convert/cast an object with a blank
property.
Is this json_decode bug a result of a larger object mechanism
limitation inside of php's object handling?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The remainder of the comments for this report are too long. To view
the rest of the comments, please view the bug report online at
http://bugs.php.net/46600
--
Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=46600&edit=1