Write double quotes in square brackets to mySQL - php

Question

How can I write this into my database field (varchar):
["TEXT"]
I have tried escaping the quotes with backslashes and using double double quotes.
Update
I am using Laravel.
I tried this:
$user = User::create(['email'=> $userEmail,
'name'=> $name,
'customer_id'=> $customer->id,
'things'=> '["TEXT"]'
]);
and this was the result in the db:
"[\"TEXT\"]"

Answer 1

This is how I got I working:
$user = User::create(['email'=> $email,
'name'=> $name,
'email'=> $email,
'customer_id'=> $customer_id,
'things'=> ["TEXT"]
]);

Answer 2

Not really sure what do you mean here.. but simply
INSERT INTO test(varchar_field) VALUES('["TEXT"]'); should help

Answer 3

That's the correct data. When displaying something with double quotes the inner double quotes will need to be escaped with the backslash character. That is:
"[\"TEXT\"]"
Is equivalent to:
'["TEXT"]'
Where no escaping is required because the quotes don't conflict.
This is an artifact of how PHP strings work.
When you test the insertion you should see the result of:
SELECT HEX(things) FROM users WHERE email=?
As showing the actual raw hex data for that column which should be:
5B2254455854225D
Where 5B represents a [ and 5D represents ]. If you're getting 22 at the front and end then for some reason double quotes are actually getting into your column and not just the way PHP displays strings.