I am trying to find the correct (or best) content type to pass to header() when outputting serialized PHP data. The best I could find when searching was a proposal for application/vnd.php.serialized and another person asking the same question without a definitive answer. I was considering using just text/plain and moving on.
The data being serialized is an associative array, 1-3 levels nested. Values are always string/int/bool, in order of occurrence.
For reasoned I'd rather not get into, my application is using PHP4. Otherwise I would be using JSON and be on my way.
Edit: My question is not about how to work with JSON in PHP.
For those interested: I am handling JSON encode/decode using the 'Services_JSON' PEAR package , however I've noticed performance issues which PHP serialized resolves.
I did not find a real official answer, but the best matching answer I can find is:
application/php-serialized
or better
application/php-serialized; charset=UTF-8
I have close to 120 JSON fields in objects.
A whole bunch of various versions of this sample JSON object
I really don't have time to map every field, nor do I care if the field title is called Array 0 or some other default.
I just want the data stuffed into a database, maintaining it's structure in indexable format.
JSON is a perfectly valid data structure, why not use it?
I did find this -> https://github.com/adamwulf/json-to-mysql and hypothetically it would do the job.
But the software is broke (no error but nothing ever gets populated).
Other alternatives such as https://doctrine-couchdb.readthedocs.org/en/latest/reference/introduction.html involve mapping. I don't have time to map 120 fields and nothing should require mapping, just use the existing.
Whats an easy way to stuff large JSON objects into MySQL, auto building the structure from an existing format?
i am writing a cms system in php 5.3 on top codeigniter. The contents of the data, i have determined, it will very in size and form and i was wondering if storing the data in JSON format in MySQL would be a good choice. I need to be able to store data in a structured way, but the way it is structured, the number of subtitles will very, the use of lists, tables, or other elements may be needed at times.
I want to create a lib of tools in the end for creating different types of sites, have the lib built very modular so that u can strip it down to the minimum sized footprint for each site.
Is JSON a the right choice or would it be to processor intensive?
JSON in MySQL? No, don't do that.
Arrays and structures are readily built from the result of a SQL query, and readily converted to JSON format (json_encode()) when needed which is not much, except when creating JavaScript.
Going the other direction is straightforward too: convert JSON to PHP arrays/hashtables (json_decode()) and use that to create a SQL query to update or insert into a set of tables.
So, I found that making my WebMethod As Object, Return Dictionary rather than As String, Return JavaScriptSerializer.Serialized() reduces the size of the JSON by ~ 20%.
Yeah, I know this isn't a big deal for traditional webapps where you're serving the consumer (in the past) and a few kb would be big, but it's HUGE for B2B where you're trying to serve up to your customers AJAXd jQuery pages with far less data transmission and greater speed when transmitting dynamic tables that could be potentially 100mb before dynamicization and id lists of about 1-2mb, but I digress.
It looks like json_encode does the same thing adding more than necessary to the JSON, from what I've read on other posts. Is there a way to simply output the array as an object or build an object from multiple arrays and export that?
1) Is print (and its' family) the only way to output?
2) Is json_encode (and its' family) necessary? After all, I don't have to decode if I output properly at the jQuery level.
I'm a big fan of speed & efficiency. As AJAX/jsLibs take over, and data becomes bigger while these hunkering server-side scripts go by the wayside, it looks like the next logical objective (aside from a standardized push to client) is to keep the size of the JSON as small as possible.
How can I keep the garbage with AJAX/PHP down to a mininum? How can I export arrays as object directly?
Thanks for bearing with me. I'm terrible with vocabulary. I hope what I want to do is relatively clear enough.
As always, thanks in advance, and thank you stack for being my brain!
The problem I was having with .net webmethod was that I was javascriptserializing my output before sending it out with <ScriptMethod(ResponseFormat:=ResponseFormat.Json)> included. That's what added the extra data to my json output.
Arrays can be exported as is with json_encode, and that's all that's needed.
I just started doing jQuery last week, and so far I already made some basic systems with ajax, like basic jQuery CRUD and simple chat system without referencing on other's work for I decided to test myself on how far I can do systems alone in jQuery(without JSON and XML yet).
But when I decided to look at other's work (hoping to get/learn good practices and codes out there) many or almost every program that deals with ajax have some JSON in it. So I decided to study and read JSON specially this one, but I guess because it's my first time dealing with it, I'm having a problem sinking it into my brain. Yeah I know it is a "lightweight way of describing hierarchical data", I also know how to make JSON like mixing a literal array and object in JS, and how to dsplay it in js.
But my question is, what's the difference and what's the advantage than not using it?
When I can still get and store data on the server using ajax and database without JSON.
By the way I haven't focus on XML yet because based from my research it's better to use JSON in AJAX.
Can you give me some actual scenario dealing with
s1. ajax php mysql (this with what disadvantages?)
and
s2. ajax php mysql json (this with what advantages?)
I mean, my focus is to send and get data, and I already can do it with s1.
Sorry if you find my question stupid. Tia. :)
Why use JSON? The answer is portability and structure.
JSON is portable because parsers and writers are available for many, many languages. This means that JSON that a PHP script generates can be very easily understood by a JavaScript script. It is the best way to transmit complex structures like arrays and objects, and have it still be compatible with multiple languages.
JSON provides structure because the data you transmit with it can have consistent formatting. This is instead of transmitting back plain-text (i.e. unformatted) data, like comma-separated or delimited data.
Data that is merely delimited (for example, "BookName1,BookName2,BookName3") is more difficult for humans to understand, debug, and work with. If you wanted to debug a response between your server and your browser and the data was delimited (like my example above), you might have a hard time understanding it. Also, if you want to add different data types, provide separate records, etc., then your custom data format becomes more complicated. Eventually, you might end up reinventing JSON.
As a side note, JSON is indeed better than XML. It is much more efficient space-wise. There are no tag names to take up space. Structure is created via nested braces, instead of verbose tags.
Resources
Here is an interesting article on the differences and pros/cons of XML and JSON: http://www.json.org/xml.html
Examples
Per your request, here is an example of encoding JSON with PHP. This is ripped from the docs:
$arr = array ('a'=>1,'b'=>2,'c'=>3,'d'=>4,'e'=>5);
echo json_encode($arr);
Output:
{"a":1,"b":2,"c":3,"d":4,"e":5}
Contrast this to something like this, without JSON:
a,1
b,2
c,3
d,4
e,5
To parse that, you'd have to iterate through each line, split the values yourself, and then create the array. This isn't that difficult, but imagine you have a nested object:
$arr = array ('a'=> array(1,2,3),'b'=> array('a' => 1, 'b' => 2),'c'=>3,'d'=> array(1,2,3,4,5) ,'e'=>5); // etc.
With JSON, it's no different to encode it. Just use json_encode. But, encoding this manually, and then decoding it manually would be significantly more work.
Programming in any sort of programming language, you have several different types of data at your disposal, including the very useful array type.
Interchanging data between Javascript and any server side language can only happen through strings. I.e. you can send and return any text, but there's no way to send a native array or number type.
JSON is an elegant way to express array and other types using only a string. This way you can pass arbitrary data back and forth between different environments and are not limited to pure text. XML solves the same kind of problem, but is often overkill for simple AJAX requests.