JSON received as quote (with "" mark) - php

Question

I keep receiving my JSON from my web service inside quotation marks, like this:
"[{"id":"1","nombre":"Cecilia","correo":"csoto#ts.edu.mx","telefono":"5529964"},{"id":"2","nombre":"Romero","correo":"","telefono":"5435432"},{"id":"3","nombre":"nick","correo":"carlos#mail.com","telefono":"12345"}]"
Notice the "" before the brackets and I don't know why.
I'm using jacwright's restServer (https://github.com/jacwright/RestServer) with this function:
public function getUsers()
{
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "root";
$password = "";
$dbname = "estudiantes";
// Create connection
$array = array();
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);
// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}
$sql = "SELECT id, nombre, correo, telefono FROM estudiante";
$result = $conn->query($sql);
if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
// output data of each row
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
$res = array("id" => $row["id"], "nombre" => $row["nombre"], "telefono" => $row["telefono"], "correo" => $row["correo"]);
array_push($array, $res);
//echo "id: " . $row["id"]. " - Name: " . $row["nombre"]. " " . $row["correo"]. "<br>";
}
}
$conn->close();
return json_encode($array) ;
}
Can somebody insight me why it keeps adding these quotation marks?

Answer 1

Just a quick example simulating your case, using echo to return JSON encoded array:
JS:
$.get('json.php', function(data) {
console.log(data);
if (data) {
//Check the console, everything is working like charm
newData = $.parseJSON(data);
console.log(data);
console.log('--------------' + 'Elements count:' + newData.length);
console.log('--------------' + newData);
}
});
json.php:
<?php
$myArr = array(
array("id"=>"1","nombre"=>"Cecilia","correo"=>"csoto#ts.edu.mx","telefono"=>"5529964"),
array("id"=>"2","nombre"=>"Romero","correo"=>"","telefono"=>"5435432"),
array("id"=>"3","nombre"=>"nick","correo"=>"carlos#mail.com","telefono"=>"12345")
);
$jsonData = json_encode($myArr);
echo $jsonData;
?>
Same above code using return $jsonData; instead of echo $jsonData; in json.php it gives me the following in the console:
emptiness for data
console error:
ReferenceError: newData is not defined

Answer 2

The reason of getting the quotes in the returned string is because the server (https://github.com/jacwright/RestServer) is doing json_encode itself. So when you return the data from your function getUsers and you have used json_encode it is converted to a json string and when RestServer returns it to you it sees it only as a string therefore adding quotes around it.
If you look at the TestController you will see that it returns an object $user not json_encode($user) and RestServer in it's sendData function actually uses the json_encode function.
So your code needs to be:
public function getUsers()
{
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "root";
$password = "";
$dbname = "estudiantes";
// Create connection
$array = array();
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);
// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}
$sql = "SELECT id, nombre, correo, telefono FROM estudiante";
$result = $conn->query($sql);
if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
// output data of each row
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
$res = array("id" => $row["id"], "nombre" => $row["nombre"], "telefono" => $row["telefono"], "correo" => $row["correo"]);
array_push($array, $res);
//echo "id: " . $row["id"]. " - Name: " . $row["nombre"]. " " . $row["correo"]. "<br>";
}
}
$conn->close();
return $array;
}
Also check out the function sendData in https://github.com/jacwright/RestServer/blob/master/source/Jacwright/RestServer/RestServer.php#L414 on line 414.