Invalid JSON parsing using PHP - php

Question

I'm pulling a JSON feed that is invalid JSON. It's missing quotes entirely. I've tried a few things, like explode() and str_replace(), to get the string looking a little bit more like valid JSON, but with an associate JSON string inside, it generally gets screwed up.
Here's an example:
id:43015,name:'John Doe',level:15,systems:[{t:6,glr:1242,n:'server',s:185,c:9}],classs:0,subclass:5
Are there any JSON parsers for php out there that can handle invalid JSON like this?
Edit: I'm trying to use json_decode() on this string. It returns nothing.

Answer 1

All the quotes should be double quotes " and not single quotes '.
All the keys should be quoted.
The whole element should be an object.
function my_json_decode($s) {
$s = str_replace(
array('"', "'"),
array('\"', '"'),
$s
);
$s = preg_replace('/(\w+):/i', '"\1":', $s);
return json_decode(sprintf('{%s}', $s));
}

Answer 2

This regex will do the trick
$json = preg_replace('/([{,])(\s*)([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+?)\s*:/','$1"$3":',$json);

Answer 3

From my experience Marko's answer doesnt work anymore. For newer php versions use this istead:
$a = "{id:43015,name:'John Doe',level:15,systems:[{t:6,glr:1242,n:'server',s:185,c:988}],classs:0,subclass:5}";
$a = preg_replace('/(,|\{)[ \t\n]*(\w+)[ ]*:[ ]*/','$1"$2":',$a);
$a = preg_replace('/":\'?([^\[\]\{\}]*?)\'?[ \n\t]*(,"|\}$|\]$|\}\]|\]\}|\}|\])/','":"$1"$2',$a);
print_r($a);

Answer 4

I know this question is old, but I hope this helps someone.
I had a similar problem, in that I wanted to accept JSON as a user input, but didn't want to require tedious "quotes" around every key. Furthermore, I didn't want to require quotes around the values either, but still parse valid numbers.
The simplest way seemed to be writing a custom parser.
I came up with this, which parses to nested associative / indexed arrays:
function loose_json_decode($json) {
$rgxjson = '%((?:\{[^\{\}\[\]]*\})|(?:\[[^\{\}\[\]]*\]))%';
$rgxstr = '%("(?:[^"\\\\]*|\\\\\\\\|\\\\"|\\\\)*"|\'(?:[^\'\\\\]*|\\\\\\\\|\\\\\'|\\\\)*\')%';
$rgxnum = '%^\s*([+-]?(\d+(\.\d*)?|\d*\.\d+)(e[+-]?\d+)?|0x[0-9a-f]+)\s*$%i';
$rgxchr1 = '%^'.chr(1).'\\d+'.chr(1).'$%';
$rgxchr2 = '%^'.chr(2).'\\d+'.chr(2).'$%';
$chrs = array(chr(2),chr(1));
$escs = array(chr(2).chr(2),chr(2).chr(1));
$nodes = array();
$strings = array();
# escape use of chr(1)
$json = str_replace($chrs,$escs,$json);
# parse out existing strings
$pieces = preg_split($rgxstr,$json,-1,PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
for($i=1;$i<count($pieces);$i+=2) {
$strings []= str_replace($escs,$chrs,str_replace(array('\\\\','\\\'','\\"'),array('\\','\'','"'),substr($pieces[$i],1,-1)));
$pieces[$i] = chr(2) . (count($strings)-1) . chr(2);
}
$json = implode($pieces);
# parse json
while(1) {
$pieces = preg_split($rgxjson,$json,-1,PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
for($i=1;$i<count($pieces);$i+=2) {
$nodes []= $pieces[$i];
$pieces[$i] = chr(1) . (count($nodes)-1) . chr(1);
}
$json = implode($pieces);
if(!preg_match($rgxjson,$json)) break;
}
# build associative array
for($i=0,$l=count($nodes);$i<$l;$i++) {
$obj = explode(',',substr($nodes[$i],1,-1));
$arr = $nodes[$i][0] == '[';
if($arr) {
for($j=0;$j<count($obj);$j++) {
if(preg_match($rgxchr1,$obj[$j])) $obj[$j] = $nodes[+substr($obj[$j],1,-1)];
else if(preg_match($rgxchr2,$obj[$j])) $obj[$j] = $strings[+substr($obj[$j],1,-1)];
else if(preg_match($rgxnum,$obj[$j])) $obj[$j] = +trim($obj[$j]);
else $obj[$j] = trim(str_replace($escs,$chrs,$obj[$j]));
}
$nodes[$i] = $obj;
} else {
$data = array();
for($j=0;$j<count($obj);$j++) {
$kv = explode(':',$obj[$j],2);
if(preg_match($rgxchr1,$kv[0])) $kv[0] = $nodes[+substr($kv[0],1,-1)];
else if(preg_match($rgxchr2,$kv[0])) $kv[0] = $strings[+substr($kv[0],1,-1)];
else if(preg_match($rgxnum,$kv[0])) $kv[0] = +trim($kv[0]);
else $kv[0] = trim(str_replace($escs,$chrs,$kv[0]));
if(preg_match($rgxchr1,$kv[1])) $kv[1] = $nodes[+substr($kv[1],1,-1)];
else if(preg_match($rgxchr2,$kv[1])) $kv[1] = $strings[+substr($kv[1],1,-1)];
else if(preg_match($rgxnum,$kv[1])) $kv[1] = +trim($kv[1]);
else $kv[1] = trim(str_replace($escs,$chrs,$kv[1]));
$data[$kv[0]] = $kv[1];
}
$nodes[$i] = $data;
}
}
return $nodes[count($nodes)-1];
}
Note that it does not catch errors or bad formatting...
For your situation, it looks like you'd want to add {}'s around it (as json_decode also requires):
$data = loose_json_decode('{' . $json . '}');
which for me yields:
array(6) {
["id"]=>
int(43015)
["name"]=>
string(8) "John Doe"
["level"]=>
int(15)
["systems"]=>
array(1) {
[0]=>
array(5) {
["t"]=>
int(6)
["glr"]=>
int(1242)
["n"]=>
string(6) "server"
["s"]=>
int(185)
["c"]=>
int(9)
}
}
["classs"]=>
int(0)
["subclass"]=>
int(5)
}

Answer 5

$json = preg_replace('/([{,])(\s*)([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+?)\s*:/','$1"$3":',$json);// adding->(")
$json = str_replace("'",'"', $json);// replacing->(')
This solution seems to be enough for most common purposes.

Answer 6

I'd say your best bet is to download the source of a JSON decoder (they're not huge) and fiddle with it, especially if you know what's wrong with the JSON you're trying to decode.
The example you provided needs { } around it, too, which may help.

Answer 7

This is my solution to remove trailing/leading/multi commas. It can be combined with other answers that remove single quotes and add quotes around json keys. I realize this would not be relevant to the OP as it deals with other types of invalid json however I just hope to help someone who finds this question on a google search.
function replace_unquoted_text ($json, $f)
{
$matches = array();
preg_match_all('/(")(?:(?=(\\\\?))\2.)*?\1/', $json, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
//echo '<pre>' . json_encode($matches[0]) . '</pre>';
$matchIndexes = [0];
foreach ($matches[0] as $match)
{
array_push($matchIndexes, $match[1]);
array_push($matchIndexes, strlen($match[0]) + $match[1]);
}
array_push($matchIndexes, strlen($json));
$components = [];
for ($n = 0; $n < count($matchIndexes); $n += 2)
{
$startIDX = $matchIndexes[$n];
$finalExclIDX = $matchIndexes[$n + 1];
//echo $startIDX . ' -> ' . $finalExclIDX . '<br>';
$len = $finalExclIDX - $startIDX;
if ($len === 0) continue;
$prevIDX = ($n === 0) ? 0 : $matchIndexes[$n - 1];
array_push($components, substr($json, $prevIDX, $startIDX - $prevIDX));
array_push($components, $f(substr($json, $startIDX, $len)));
array_push($components, substr($json, $finalExclIDX, ((($n + 1) === count($matchIndexes)) ? count($json) : $matchIndexes[$n + 1]) - $finalExclIDX));
}
//echo '<pre>' . json_encode($components) . '</pre>';
return implode("", $components);
}
function json_decode_lazy ($jsonSnip) {
return json_decode(fix_lazy_json($jsonSnip));
}
function fix_lazy_json ($json) {
return replace_unquoted_text($json, 'fix_lazy_snip');
}
function fix_lazy_snip ($jsonSnip) {
return remove_multi_commas_snip(remove_leading_commas_snip(remove_trailing_commas_snip($jsonSnip)));
}
function remove_leading_commas ($json) {
return replace_unquoted_text($json, 'remove_leading_commas_snip');
}
function remove_leading_commas_snip ($jsonSnip) {
return preg_replace('/([{[]\s*)(,\s*)*/', '$1', $jsonSnip);
}
function remove_trailing_commas ($json) {
return replace_unquoted_text($json, 'remove_trailing_commas_snip');
}
function remove_trailing_commas_snip ($jsonSnip) {
return preg_replace('/(,\s*)*,(\s*[}\]])/', '$2', $jsonSnip);
}
function remove_multi_commas ($json) {
return replace_unquoted_text($json, 'remove_multi_commas_snip');
}
function remove_multi_commas_snip ($jsonSnip) {
return preg_replace('/(,\s*)+,/', ',', $jsonSnip);
}
json_decode_lazy('[,,{,,,"a":17,,, "b":13,,,,},,,]') // {"a":17, "b":13}
See on repl.it.