JSON header in PHP

Introduction

JSON header in PHP is a technique used to send response headers in JSON format instead of traditional HTML or plain text format. This technique is widely used in modern web applications to retrieve data from external APIs and display the JSON response on the web page.

Advantages

1. Lightweight: JSON format is lightweight as compared to other formats such as XML.
2. Easy to read: JSON format is easy to read and understand for both machines and humans.
3. Cross-platform compatibility: JSON format is supported by almost all programming languages and platforms.
4. Efficient communication: JSON format facilitates efficient communication between web applications and external APIs.

How to send JSON header in PHP

Following is a simple code snippet that demonstrates how to send a JSON header in PHP.

header('Content-Type: application/json');
echo json_encode($data);

In the code snippet, we first set the content type header to application/json using the header() function. Then, we encode the data in JSON format using the json_encode() function and send the response using the echo statement.

Conclusion

JSON header in PHP is a powerful technique for retrieving data from external APIs and displaying JSON responses on web pages. This technique is easy to implement and provides a lightweight, efficient way to communicate between web applications and external APIs.