JSON Formatter, Minifier, and Validator in PHP — DevToolsForYou

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JSON parsing and serialisation is built into every major language. Here is how to parse a JSON string, format (pretty-print) JSON, and handle common edge cases in each language.

PHP has built-in json_encode() and json_decode() functions. Pass JSON_PRETTY_PRINT for formatted output.

Also in:JavaScript / Node.js Python Go Java Ruby Rust C# / .NET

PHP

<?php

// Parse JSON string → array
$data = json_decode('{"name":"Alice","age":30}', true); // true = assoc array
echo $data["name"] . "
"; // Alice

// Parse JSON → object (default)
$obj = json_decode('{"name":"Alice","age":30}');
echo $obj->name . "
"; // Alice

// Serialize array → JSON
$json = json_encode($data);
echo $json . "
"; // {"name":"Alice","age":30}

// Pretty-print
$pretty = json_encode($data, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
echo $pretty . "
";

// Pretty-print + Unicode (don't escape non-ASCII)
$pretty2 = json_encode($data, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT | JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);

// Error handling
$result = json_decode("invalid json", true);
if (json_last_error() !== JSON_ERROR_NONE) {
    echo "Error: " . json_last_error_msg() . "
";
}

// PHP 8.3+: throws JsonException on error
try {
    $data = json_decode("invalid", true, 512, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR);
} catch (JsonException $e) {
    echo $e->getMessage() . "
";
}

Notes & gotchas

Pass true as the second argument to json_decode() to get an associative array instead of stdClass.
json_decode() returns null on error — always check json_last_error() or use JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR.
JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE prevents ASCII escaping of characters like © or emoji, keeping the output readable.

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JSON Formatter, Minifier, and Validator in other languages

JSON Formatter, Minifier, and Validator in JavaScript / Node.js

JavaScript has JSON.parse() and JSON.stringify() built in. Use the space parameter of JSON.stringify() for pretty-printing.

JSON Formatter, Minifier, and Validator in Python

Python's json module has json.loads() for parsing and json.dumps() for serialization. Use indent for pretty-printing.

JSON Formatter, Minifier, and Validator in Go

Go's encoding/json package uses struct tags for mapping. json.Marshal() serializes and json.Unmarshal() parses.

JSON Formatter, Minifier, and Validator in Java

Java has no built-in JSON library. Jackson (ObjectMapper) is the standard choice; Gson is also popular.

JSON Formatter, Minifier, and Validator in Ruby

Ruby's standard library includes the json gem. Use JSON.parse to decode and JSON.generate (or JSON.pretty_generate) to encode.

JSON Formatter, Minifier, and Validator in Rust

Rust uses serde_json for JSON serialization and deserialization. Define structs with #[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)] for typed parsing.

JSON Formatter, Minifier, and Validator in C# / .NET

C# uses System.Text.Json (built-in since .NET 3.0) for JSON serialization. Use JsonSerializer.Serialize / Deserialize for typed objects.

JSON Formatter, Minifier, and Validator in PHP — Code Examples