Preserve special characters in json string

Question

Preserve special characters in json string

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The app that I am developing has a log in function that greets the users that successfully have filled in their Username and Password with a welcoming alert message like for instance: Welcome Steve. My app is developed mainly for a Norwegian audience and since we have some special characters like Æ, Ø and Å, I want those characters to be preserved in my apps greetings as well. As it works at this point, I am greeted with Welcome \u00c5ge because my first name is Åge. I need a way to preserve special characters in my json responseText. Can this be done in my auth.php(server script) or when received in loginReq(Titanium) or do both need a modification?

Here are my some of my code:

From server script(auth.php):

if (mysql_num_rows($query) > 0)  
{  
    $row = mysql_fetch_array($query);  
        $response = array(  
        'auth' => true,
        'message' => _('Welcome').' '.$row['first_name'].' '.$row['last_name'],
        'username' => $row['username'],
        'password' => $row['password'],
  //    'first_name' => $row['first_name'],
        'last_name' => $row['last_name']  
    );  
 
    $response = json_encode(utf8ArrayValues($response));    // All values must be in utf8 before encoded through json_encode
    echo $response = str_replace("\\", "\\\\", $response);          // Needs this to preserve unicoded special characters  
}  
else  
{  
    // Else the username and/or password was invalid! Create an array, json_encode it and echo it out  
    $response = array(  
        'auth' => false,  
        'message' => _('Sorry, wrong Username or Password!') 
    );  
    echo json_encode($response);
}

Script receiving the $response(Titanium):

loginReq.onload = function(){  
    var json = this.responseText;  
    var response = JSON.parse(json);  
    if (response.auth == true)  
    {  
        alert(response.message);
    }else{  
        alert(response.message);  
    }  
};

1 Answer

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Accepted Answer

Accepted Answer

Hi Åge

I have made a simplified version of your php file for testing purposes and swapped where the encoding occurs.

I have used utf8_encode around the fields which require encoding - this functions at a string level. I have also used the header call for UTF8.

I know you are using an array from sql using mysql_fetch_array, and I wonder if that is where you are actually having problems. I have used a manual array for $row as I do not have access to your database.

The example below works correctly and passes the correctly encoded string \u00c5 in this case.

<?php
    header( 'Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8' ); 
    $row = array('username' => 'user', 'password' => 'passw1', 'first_name' => utf8_encode('Åge'), 'last_name' => utf8_encode('Engjom'));
 
    $response = array(  
        'auth' => true,
        'message' => _('Welcome').' '.$row['first_name'].' '.$row['last_name'],
        'username' => $row['username'],
        'password' => $row['password'],
        'first_name' => $row['first_name'],
        'last_name' => $row['last_name']  
    );  
 
    echo json_encode($response);
?>

My HTTPClient is almost identical to yours.

xhr.onload = function (e) {
    switch (xhr.status) {
    case 200:
        response = this.responseText;
        json = JSON.parse(response);
        alert(json.message);
        break;
    case 304:
        break;
    }
};