Fix invalid JSON [duplicate] - php

Question

This question already has answers here:
How can I parse a JSON string in which objects are not comma separated?
(5 answers)
Closed 4 years ago.
I have a huge file that unfortunately contains invalid JSON.
It looks like list of arrays, not separated with a comma:
[{
"key": "value"
}]
[
[{
"key": "value",
"obj": {}
},
{}
]
]
[{
"key": "value",
"obj": {}
}]
The content inside every square brackets pair seems to be a valid JSON by itself.
The question is how to fix this JSON quickly with "search and replace"? (or any other method)
Tried many combinations including replacing "][" to "],[" and wrapping the whole file with one more square brackets pair making it array of arrays.
Every time it gives me invalid JSON.
Please help.

Answer 1

You can replace the closing brackets with '],' and wrap the entire string in brackets.
This snippet illustrates the method with the supplied sample data by applying the algorithm and then calling eval on the resulting string.
let jsonString = `[{
"key": "value"
}]
[
[{
"key": "value",
"obj": {}
},
{}
]
]
[{
"key": "value",
"obj": {}
}]`;
jsonString = jsonString.replace( /]/g, '],' );
jsonString = '[' + jsonString + ']';
myObject = eval( jsonString );
console.log( typeof myObject);
console.log( myObject.length );
console.log( myObject );

Answer 2

This is a dynamic php solution, but I would cringe to have to use this as a reliable source of data. This is a bandaid. Whatever code is producing this invalid json NEEDS to be fixed asap.
My regex pattern will seek all occurrences of ], zero or more spaces, then ] then it will add a comma after the ].
The entire string is wrapped in square brackets to make the json string valid.
The risk may or may not be obvious to all -- if any of the actual keys or values contain strings that qualify for replacement, then they will be damaged. This is why using regex on json is not recommended.
Code: (Demo)
$bad_json = '[{
"key": "value"
}]
[
[{
"key": "value",
"obj": {}
},
{}
]
]
[{
"key": "value",
"obj": {}
}]';
$valid_json = "[" . preg_replace("~]\K(?=\s*\[)~", ",", $bad_json) . "]";
var_export(json_decode($valid_json, true));
Output:
array (
0 =>
array (
0 =>
array (
'key' => 'value',
),
),
1 =>
array (
0 =>
array (
0 =>
array (
'key' => 'value',
'obj' =>
array (
),
),
1 =>
array (
),
),
),
2 =>
array (
0 =>
array (
'key' => 'value',
'obj' =>
array (
),
),
),
)