Bug #61537 [Com]: json_encode() incorrectly truncates/discards information

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=61537&edit=1 ID: 61537 Comment by: yohgaki@php.net Reported by: joey@php.net Summary: json_encode() incorrectly truncates/discards information Status: Open Type: Bug Package: JSON related Operating System: all PHP Version: 5.4.0 Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: I prefer option 2. It's an error condition anyway. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-03-28 05:12:08] aharvey@php.net I think we've got two options here: 1. Change the documented behaviour to note that invalid UTF-8 strings are encoded as NULL, rather than causing json_encode() to return false, and advise users to check json_last_error() if they're concerned about the output. 2. Change the json_encode() behaviour to match the documentation. Quick and dirty POC patch which adds a switch to fall back to the current behaviour: https://gist.github.com/7735daabc56fb38eb511 Option 2 has a BC concern: we've never advertised json_encode() as not returning false in this case, but people may rely on it. Either way, I think we should probably drop the if (PG(display_errors)) { ... } around the warning in json_escape_string(). Anyone else have thoughts? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-03-28 05:01:34] joey@php.net Per documentation: Return Values: Returns a JSON encoded string on success or FALSE on failure. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-03-28 05:01:01] joey@php.net Description: ------------ When json_encode() cannot correctly encode its argument into JSON, the expected behaviour is that it will return false, and people can check json_last_error() to see why it failed. Currently, it will replace all data it could not encode with the string 'null'. This can lead to what appears to be silently discarding data. Test script: --------------- <?php var_dump(json_encode(chr(215)), json_last_error()); Expected result: ---------------- bool(false) int(5) Actual result: -------------- string(4) 'null' int(5) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=61537&edit=1