How to compress JSON with PHP?

Question

I\'m writing a little analysis page which will help me hunt down bugs in an application. In essence it allows to visually compare actual data and log entries, plus perform a

Answer 1

In PHP 5.4 is now JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE so you can replace char:

\u00f3 -> Ĺ› = Ś

eq:

 json_encode($data,JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);

Answer 2

If apache is your choice (and it is, like mentioned in original question), you may add some rules into .htaccess:

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
    # Add any mime-type you think is appropriate here
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/json
</IfModule>

Answer 3

You can compress the data with PHP’s output control. Just put this call at the start of your script before any output:

ob_start('ob_gzhandler');

Now any output will be compressed with either gzip or deflate if accepted by the client.