Stuck with PHP 5.1.6 on RHEL or even CentOS (and a sysadmin who insists on using packages)? Need JSON? I did. The solution is easy:
yum install php-devel
pecl install json
The pecl install failed when it hit an 8MB memory limit, and I was clueless about how to fix it until I learned that the pecl installer ignores the php.ini. Turns out the best solution is to use the pear installer (which does follow php.ini settings):
pear install pecl/json
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Thanks man. This really helped.
I was migrating a CakePHP site to Rackspace’s Cloud server and ran into this issue. No repository had it so it was the pecl install for me. Worked like a charm.
I am having the trouble with JSON and PHP as well.
I have followed all the steps; running php -r ‘var_dump(function_exists(“json_encode”))’ return TRUE;
However as soon as I run this from a PHP script in apache; I get False;
Anyone care to help?
Thanks
Hey, I’ve got exactly the same problem.
JSON module appears in the command line PHP module (CentOS 4.4, PHP 5.1.6) but it doesn’t shows up in Apache (However phpinfo() shows the json.ini file loaded BUT not the .so)
Fatal error: Call to undefined function json_last_error()…
Any ideas?
i tried to install it using the pear command.but showing something like this bash: pear: command not found.plz help
@Andy
@hm2k
I faced these problems as well. There are a few steps required outlined in the writeup URL below. Basically, you need to add json.so to the list of extensions that PHP uses, and you need to restart your webserver.
http://slaptijack.com/system-administration/lets-install-json-for-php-5/
Your method didn’t work for me, but I did get it to work like this:
make sure you have a c complier installed (if you’re not sure do: yum install gcc)
then do:
pecl install json
You’ll see a lot of info passing on your screen, just make sure the last 2 lines say the install is ok.
cheate a new file:
/etc/php.d/json.ini
that contains the following line:
extension=json.so
now restart apache:
service httpd restart
That fixed the problem for me….
This is how I did it:
I have PHP 5.1.6 too.
Run:
yum install php-devel
yum install php-pear
yum install gcc
pecl install json
create a new file called json.ini in this directory: /etc/php.d/json.ini
add this in json.ini: extension=json.so
restart apache with this command:
service httpd restart
AND THAT”S ALL! Good luck! 
Hi all,
I did the complete process to install json on RHEL/php5.1.6 as exposed earlier.
However as Andy earlier, php answer that json function exist on command line (return true) but not from a php script called by apache.
I told php to load json.so module too but it’s still not working.
Any help please here to nuderstand why the command line way works and the php’s script doesn’t.
Thanks for help 
I have just found the answer on the net!!! Andy if u are here…
do:
cd /usr/lib/php/module/
strip json.so
And now all is good with a php script
Have fun with json
@Ecox method works. If you missed it
Run:
yum install php-devel
yum install php-pear
yum install gcc
pecl install json
create a new file called json.ini in this directory: /etc/php.d/json.ini
add this in json.ini: extension=json.so
restart apache with this command:
service httpd restart
