json parse error with double quotes

Question

A double quote even if escaped is throwing parse error.
look at the code below

//parse the json in javascript  
var testJson = '{"result": ["lunch", "\"Show\""] }';  
var tags = JSON.parse(testJson);  
alert (tags.result[1]);

This is throwing parse error because of the double quotes (which are already escaped).
Even eval() won't work here.
But if i escape it with double slashes like this:

var result = '{"result": ["lunch", "\\"Show\\""] }';  
var tags = JSON.parse(result);  
alert (tags.result[1]);

then it works fine.
Why do we need to use double slash here in javascript? The problem is that PHP json_encode() function escapes a double quote with a single slash (like this: \"show\") which JSON.parse won't be able to parse. How do i handle this situation?

Answer 1

Well, finally, JSON's parse uses the same eval, so there's no difference when you give them smth. with incorrect syntax. In this case you have to escape correctly your quotes in php, and then escape them and their escaping slashes with json_encode

<?php
    $json = '{"result": ["lunch", "\"Show\""] }';
    echo json_encode($json);
?>

OUTPUT: "{\"result\": [\"lunch\", \"\\\"Show\\\"\"] }"

This should work on client-side JS (if I've made no typos).