1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
3 <sect1 id="zend.json.introduction">
4 <title>Introduction</title>
7 <classname>Zend_Json</classname> provides convenience methods for serializing native
8 <acronym>PHP</acronym> to <acronym>JSON</acronym> and decoding <acronym>JSON</acronym> to
9 native <acronym>PHP</acronym>. For more information on <acronym>JSON</acronym>, <ulink
10 url="http://www.json.org/">visit the <acronym>JSON</acronym> project site</ulink>.
14 <acronym>JSON</acronym>, JavaScript Object Notation, can be used for data
15 interchange between JavaScript and other languages. Since <acronym>JSON</acronym> can be
16 directly evaluated by JavaScript, it is a more efficient and lightweight
17 format than <acronym>XML</acronym> for exchanging data with JavaScript clients.
21 In addition, <classname>Zend_Json</classname> provides a useful way to convert any
22 arbitrary <acronym>XML</acronym> formatted string into a <acronym>JSON</acronym> formatted
23 string. This built-in feature will enable <acronym>PHP</acronym> developers to transform the
24 enterprise data encoded in <acronym>XML</acronym> format into <acronym>JSON</acronym> format
25 before sending it to browser-based Ajax client applications. It provides an easy way to do
26 dynamic data conversion on the server-side code thereby avoiding unnecessary
27 <acronym>XML</acronym> parsing in the browser-side applications. It offers a nice utility
28 function that results in easier application-specific data processing techniques.