Handling Malformed UTF-8 Characters in PHP JSON Encoding

When using json_encode() to serialize an array containing Russian characters, you may encounter an error related to malformed UTF-8 characters. To resolve this issue, perform the following steps:

Step 1: Identify the Character Encoding

Use mb_detect_encoding() to determine the encoding of the field containing Russian characters. Confirm that it is indeed UTF-8, as reported by your example.

Step 2: Remove Non-UTF-8 Characters

While the field may be primarily encoded in UTF-8, it could still contain non-UTF-8 characters. To remove these, use the mb_convert_encoding() function:

$data['name'] = mb_convert_encoding($data['name'], 'UTF-8', 'UTF-8');

This action will replace any non-UTF-8 characters with their equivalent placeholder representations, ensuring that the string remains valid for JSON encoding.

Step 3: Serialize with JSON Encoding

Once the non-UTF-8 characters are removed, you can successfully serialize the data using json_encode(). The resulting JSON will be valid and contain the correct representation of the Russian characters.