How do I JSON Encode HTML in PHP?

javascript php jquery json ajax

17,721

Encoding the html like this seems to add a \ before every / causing the html to break

PHP is escaping the slashes while encoding. This can be preventing by adding a JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES flag when calling json_encode():

$data = "<html></html>";

$escaped = json_encode($data);
// string(16) ""<html><\/html>""
var_dump($escaped);

$unescaped = json_encode($data, JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES);
// string(15) ""<html></html>""
var_dump($unescaped);

17,721

Author by

Alex K

Updated on July 18, 2022

Comments

Alex K almost 2 years

I am using AJAX and PHP to create a post and display it right away. My php code works to create the post but im having trouble doing the json encode to display the post that was just created. Encoding the html like this seems to add a \ before every / causing the html to break and display in a weird way. (I am using a json encode because in the event of there being an error I need a variable to know if it was an error and display the error in a different place than then posts)

Here is what i am trying to encode

$data = "<article class='post'><div class='post-head cf'>
         <a class='userpic' href=''><img src='$userpic' alt='".$rowuser['username']."'></a>
         <a href='' class='username'>".$rowuser['username']."</a></div>
         <img src='users/user_".$rowuser['user_id']."/posts/".$row['image']."' alt=''>
         <div class='post-body'>
         <div class='post-options'>
         <a class='likes' href=''>156 likes</a>
         </div>
         <p><a class='username' href=''>".$rowuser['username']."</a>".$row['body']."</p>
         <hr /><div class='cf'>
         <a class='like hide-text' href='javascript:;'>Like This Post</a>
         <form action='' class='comment'>
         <input type='text' placeholder='Add a comment'></form></div>
         </div></article>";

echo json_encode($data);

Alex K over 7 years

Looks like this is working!!! However it is also spitting out the "" wrapping up the html for the variable :s anyway i can remove that? I know i could probably do it with jquery but would rather remove them before that
HPierce over 7 years

If you chose to remove it, it wouldn't be valid JSON anymore, it'd just be a bunch of HTML. Surely, you would just echo the HTML without json_encoding it if you wanted that echo $data vs echo json_encode($data, ...)?
Alex K over 7 years

Hmm ok i guess ill just use slice on jquery to remove them, thanks alot