Question

I’m new to JSON so having some trouble parsing it.

I made a JSON file:

newjson.json

{
    "title":"My Title",
    "contents":"My\
                Multiline\
                Contents"
}

I used \ to avoid an error in JavaScript syntax that doesn’t allow multiline strings, but when I load it with file_get_contents() and decode it using json_decode() in PHP, it can’t parse it.

I think I should handle the \s with preg_replace, or something before I put the string in a decode function.

What should I do?

Answer 1

PHP can’t parse your string because it’s not valid JSON. The only valid escape sequences are:

• \" for a quotation mark
• \\ for a backslash
• \/ for a forward slash
• \b for a backspace
• \f for a formfeed
• \n for a newline
• \r for a carriage return
• \t for a tab
• \uxxxx for a hexadecimal escape

Use a newline escape instead if you want literal newlines. Otherwise, you’ll have to live with a less-pretty string.

{
    "title":"My Title",
    "contents":"My\nMultiline\nContents"
}