Non-string variables returned as "strings"

[pb66]

We recently added "fetch" to the feed api so that multiple feed values could be returned in 1 request, A url like "http://localhost/emoncms/feed/fetch.json?ids=1,2,3,4,5,6" returns the current values for feeds 1 thru 6. But each value is in double quotes which isn't necessary and just adds to the size of the data and creates extra complexity to parse. eg

["23974","23974","473","8","5","950"] = 37bytes

would be better as

[23974,23974,473,8,5,950] = 25bytes

In this example a massive 50% increase in data size due to the quotation marks
2bytes per value wastage when strings of string values sent.

12bytes may not be alot but on a 5sec interval that's over 200KB per day (6MBpcm) and could easily mount up with more values.

I'm not very good with php and am not sure where the values become strings, where and how could these variable be cast or just not passed as strings?

[chaveiro]

You are right. Json supports strings and integers. Values passed as string are quoted.
since we are passing integers, no quotes are required.
Code could be fixed as follow example:

echo json_encode(array('event_id' => '603'));
echo json_encode(array('event_id' => '603'), JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK);

The output:
{"event_id":"603"}
{"event_id":603}

[pb66]

Hi chaverio,
thanks for the response, your answer made me curious because although in this example the values are all ints ideally we need to pass floats and longs too and on the basis I believe we already pass floats from emonhub to emoncms using json in bulk uploads I googled "json data types and found this http://www.tutorialspoint.com/json/json_data_types.htm Have I misinterpreted your comment?

What would be returned by

echo json_encode(array('event_id' => '602.99'), JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK);
{"event_id":603}
{"event_id":602.99}
or would it just error?

[chaveiro]

Decimal and float are valid also, it will return as you wrote.

[TrystanLea]

Thanks Paul, Chaveiro, I've modified the feed controller to output the values without the quotes.