Moving json extension to core?

Hi internals, Currently, it's possible to disable the json extension with ./configure --disable-json. However, JSON is widely used in many use cases - web sites, logging output, and as a data format that can be used in CLI programs to share data with many applications and programming languages, so I'd personally find it useful if it was always enabled. (e.g. to publish self-contained scripts that don't require polyfills or less readable var_export output) https://wiki.php.net/rfc/jsond mentions that > The current Json Parser in the json extension does not have a free license which is a problem > for many Linux distros. > This has been referenced at Bug #63520. That results in not packaging json extension in the > many Linux distributions. Starting in php 7.0, I'd assume licensing is no longer an issue (correct me if I'm wrong). I don't see anything discussed in the RFC or a quick search of email threads about making JSON impossible to disable. Doing this would also make some extensions more convenient to use (e.g. memcached with the json serializer, using json encoding for uses such as error messages in miscellaneous extensions, etc.) P.S. What are your thoughts about adding additional conversion specifiers such as %j or %v to PHP to call JSON with the default options. It's a feature similar to those I've seen in programming languages such as golang - https://golang.org/pkg/fmt/#hdr-Printing - printf("console.log("value from php", %j);\n", $value) - printf("Some command returned %j\n", $boolValue) Thanks, - Tyson