Question

I’m pulling JSON from Instagram:

$instagrams = json_decode($response)->data;

Then parsing variables into a PHP array to restructure the data, then re-encoding and caching the file:

file_put_contents($cache,json_encode($results));

When I open the cache file all my forward slashes “/” are being escaped:

http:\/\/distilleryimage4.instagram.com\/410e7...

I gather from my searches that json_encode() automatically does this…is there a way to disable it?

Answer 1

is there a way to disable it?

Yes, you only need to use the JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES flag (PHP 5.4+).

!important read before: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10210367/367456 (know what you’re dealing with – know your enemy: DO NOT USE in web/html context – CLI, unless CGI, might be fine thought, if they think they need it in JSON HTTP context for readability purposes, they have a different problem)

json_encode($str, JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES);

If you don’t have PHP 5.4 at hand (you certainly already asserted the warning above), pick one of the many existing functions and modify them to your needs, e.g. http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/7487 (archived copy).

Example Demo

<?php
/*
 * Escaping the reverse-solidus character ("/", slash) is optional in JSON.
 *
 * This can be controlled with the JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES flag constant in PHP.
 *
 * @link http://stackoverflow.com/a/10210433/367456
 */    

$url = 'http://www.example.com/';

echo json_encode($url), "\n";

echo json_encode($url, JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES), "\n";

Example Output:

"http:\/\/www.example.com\/"
"http://www.example.com/"