How to add spaces and new lines when using json_encode()? [duplicate] - php

Question

This question already has answers here:
Pretty-Printing JSON with PHP
(27 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I've seen multiple answers in here but none of them had a solution to my question, so I made an account to ask this question. I understand now that \n is not an allowed character in json because the backslash is not allowed and that's why the problem is occurring.
I have the following code to encode an array in json:
<?php
$data = array('test1' => 'something1', 'test2' => 'something2', 'test3' => 'something3');
echo json_encode($data);
I'm trying to have the string outputted as follows:
{
"test1": "something1",
"test2": "something2",
"test3": "something3"
}
But what I'm getting is this:
{"test1":"something1","test2":"something2","test3":"something3"}
This is my go at it:
<?php
$data = array('test1' => 'something1\n', 'test2' => 'something2\n', 'test3' => 'something3\n');
echo json_encode($data);
but this returns
{"test1":"something1\n","test2":"something2\n","test3":"something3\n"}

Answer 1

You can add a second parameter to json_encode. This is called the JSON_PRETTY_PRINT constant:
<?php
$data = array('test1' => 'something1', 'test2' => 'something2', 'test3' => 'something3');
echo json_encode($data, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

Answer 2

You can use JSON_PRETTY_PRINT with header
$data = array('test1' => 'something1', 'test2' => 'something2', 'test3' => 'something3');
header('Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8');
echo json_encode($data,JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
OR
$json= json_encode($data,JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
printf("<pre>%s</pre>", $json);

Answer 3

JSON is an interchange format, so you need not to be concerned about the looks very much.
Anyway, you can use flag constants to alter the encoding process
<?php
$a = '{"test1":"something1","test2":"something2","test3":"something3"}';
print_r(json_encode(json_decode($a, true), JSON_PRETTY_PRINT));
See live example: https://3v4l.org/CEc3L