MCE editor_settings first_init 'format' JSON names should be quoted

[MrGregWaugh]

The default 'format' JSON value does not quote the key names in objects. This is required by JSON spec RFC 7159 (​https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7159#page-6) and also required by PHP's json_decode (Example 3: ​http://php.net/manual/en/function.json-decode.php). This makes it difficult to parse and modify using built-in libraries.

Example:

{alignleft: [{selector: "p,h1,etc", styles: {textAlign:"left"}}]}

Should be:

{"alignleft": [{"selector": "p,h1,etc", "styles": {"textAlign":"left"}}]}

Source:

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/4.7/src/wp-includes/class-wp-editor.php#L525

Attaching patch for review.

[MrGregWaugh]

JSON format patch for 40718

[ocean90]

Hello @MrGregWaugh, thanks for your patch!

Wondering if we shouldn't just use json_encode() here. @azaozz Any thoughts on this?

[azaozz]

This is the "setting format" for that TinyMCE option (object of arrays containing other objects), not really JSON.

Looks like this can be enhanced to pass the needed setting as PHP arrays and objects, which then can be filtered (on the PHP side) and JSON encoded before adding the TinyMCE init array. This could be useful for plugins that want to extend that (quite complex) setting.

Other than that, don't see a good reason to convert the format to "hard-coded" JSON.

This is somewhere between maybelater and future release. Would be good to hear from plugin authors that would want to use a PHP filter there before even making a patch.

[parsmizban]

Use this decoder for such json arrays:

​https://github.com/parsmizban/services-json

// create a new instance of Services_JSON
$json = new Services_JSON();

// convert a complexe value to JSON notation, and send it to the browser
$value = array('foo', 'bar', array(1, 2, 'baz'), array(3, array(4)));
$output = $json->encode($value);

print($output);
// prints: ["foo","bar",[1,2,"baz"],[3,[4]]]

// accept incoming POST data, assumed to be in JSON notation
$input = file_get_contents('php://input', 1000000);
$value = $json->decode($input);

// if you want to convert json to php arrays:
$json = new Services_JSON(SERVICES_JSON_LOOSE_TYPE);