problems parsing JSON in javascript from PHP

Question

Here is my PHP array:

$entries = array(
    1420934400 => array(
        'entry' => 'I think I liked it.',
        'data' => 'some'
    ),
    1452470400 => array(
        'entry' => 'Turkey is much better. Tastes more like chicken.',
        'data' => 'no calls'
    ));

Then I convert to JSON

$entries = json_encode($entries);

This produces the string:
{"1420934400":{"entry":"I think I liked it.","data":"some"},"1452470400":{"entry":"Turkey is much better. Tastes more like chicken.","data":"no calls"}}

...which I believe is valid JSON. But when I try to access in JavaScript:

<script>
    var fetchedEntries = JSON.parse(<?php echo $entries ?>);
    console.log('entries: %o', fetchedEntries);
</script>

I get the following error:

SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 2 of the JSON data

Can anyone see where I'm going wrong?

Answer 1

You don't need JSON.parse in JS since JSON can be directly interpreted by JS (it is called JavaScript Object Notation for a reason ;-). Do

var fetchedEntries = <?php echo $entries ?>;

When you receive the JSON data as a string, then JSON.parse is appropriate. For example, this works too:

var fetchedEntries = JSON.parse( "<?php echo json_encode( $array_or_obj ); ?>" );