json_encode in PHP turns Cyrillic into \u041D codes

Question

PHP

Actually a subject. How to fix this behavior?

Answer 1

json_encode($str, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);

Answer 2

Actually, it is not necessary to “fix” (although in terms of perfectionism, I understand you well). These are legitimate JS strings that are displayed correctly in the browser. The amount of data, however, is larger. But, on the other hand, Gzip compression minimizes this factor. ;-)
You can also do this:

$json = defined('JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE')
      ? json_encode($data, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE)
      : json_encode($data);

Then, in recent versions of PHP, the JSON code will be the most optimal in terms of volume, and in older versions it will be only slightly less optimal.

Answer 3

For PHP 5.3 and below, you can do this

preg_replace_callback('/\\\u([01-9a-fA-F]{4})/', 'prepareUTF8', json_encode($array))