PHP output JSON Web Service charset UTF-8 error

Question

I am hosting a web service in JSON output by PHP.

I have Hebrew data set in DB and I am posting this as an output to Web service.

When I post the data initially it output the result as follows:

JSON:

{
    "tasklist": [
        {
            "customerID": "9936",
            "name": "טר ×רמה ×™×–×•× ×•×‘×™× ×•×™ בע"מ",
            "cargo":"×ברר",
            "destination":"מכר", 
            "quantity":"1.000000",
            "startdate":"03/01/201300: 00: 00" 
        }
               ]
}

But this "×ברר" can be readable by Android/Iphone parser and convert it to original Hebrew. But i faced Error in "name": "טר ×רמה ×™×–×•× ×•×‘×™× ×•×™ בע"מ",. where " is in between the string so the JSON is not valid and shows error!

To Over come this issue I used UTF-8 to convert "×ברר" this to Hebrew "נברר". But in this case too the problem remains same:

PHP:

header('Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8');

JSON:

{
    "tasklist": [
        {
            "customerID": "9936",
            "name": "טר ארמה יזום ובינוי בע"מ",
            "cargo":"נברר",
            "destination":"מכר",
            "quantity":"1.000000",
            "startdate":"03/01/201300: 00: 00"
        }
                ]
}

But still the problem remains:

Also in some case I am getting this � because of using UTF-8

"name":"מחצבות כפר גלעדי-חומרי מ�"

• How can I overcome this issue?
• Is there any other specific encode I need to use?

Note: The data cannot be changes in Database The solution should be while output to JSON.

How the data stored in DB is shown below:

name

מחצבות כפר גלעדי-חומרי מ×

My PHP Script which output JSON:

<?php

//My DB connection and Query comes here

$jsontext = '{"tasklist":[';
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($queryExe)){
$jsontext .= '{"customerID":"'.$row['AUTO_ID'].'",';
$jsontext .='"name":"'.$row['Customer_Name'].'",';
$jsontext .='"cargo":"'.$row['Type_of_Cargo'].'",';
$jsontext .='"destination":"'.$row['Destination'].'",';
$jsontext .='"quantity":"'.$row['Quantity'].'",';
$jsontext .='"startdate":"'.$row['startdate'].'"},';
}
$jsontext = substr_replace($jsontext, '', -1); // to get rid of extra comma
$jsontext .= "]}";

header('Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8');

//Output the final JSON
echo $jsontext;

?>

Thank you for your help in advance!

Was the question clear? to understand my issue.

Answer 1

If your db-field is utf8 you should fist do:

mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'");

You should always do the 'SET NAMES...' before inserting your data, too. Be sure that you really stored utf8 encoded strings!

then do your query:

mysql_query($your_query);

$array = array("tasklist"=>array());    

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($queryExe)){
        $a = array();
        $a["customerID"] = $row['AUTO_ID'];
        $a["name"] = $row['Customer_Name'];
        $a["cargo"] = $row['Type_of_Cargo'];
        $a["destination"] = $row['Destination'];
        $a["quantity"] = $row['Quantity'];
        $a["startdate"] = $row['startdate'];
        $array["tasklist"][] = $a;
}

header("Content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8");

echo json_encode($array);
exit();

i've made the experience that these is not enough when the servers default charset is for example iso. In that case i need to do the following in my .htaccess:

AddDefaultCharset utf-8