After upload to server, all numbers outputed json is string - mysql

Question

I am using Laravel 5.5.13.
I succesfully tested everything on my loclahost. I now uploaded to server.
I did an export from phpMyAdmin with default settings in my localhost (XAMPP, Windows 10), then did a import on remote phpMyAdmin with default settings.
When hit the remote host, it is now giving all fields that I setup in my migrations like this:
$table->integer('extension_id')->unsigned();
as a string, which is so weird, becuase when on localhost, it is giving as a number.
In the data below, please notice, that in localhost, displayname_id and extensions_id values are not wrapped with quotes. However id is not, which i don't understand, it is also unsigned. My goal is to make even id column be string (or if not possible, then make the *_id back to number).
Here it is from remote:
[
{
"id": 2,
"name": "Stencil",
"kind": "cws",
"created_at": "2017-11-11 00:26:52",
"updated_at": "2017-11-11 00:26:52",
"thumbs_count": "1",
"thumbs_yes_count": "0",
"latest_comment": {
"id": 1,
"body": "huh?",
"displayname_id": "1",
"extension_id": "2",
"created_at": "2017-11-11 00:26:56",
"updated_at": "2017-11-11 00:26:56"
}
}
]
Here it is from localhost:
[
{
"id": 2,
"name": "Stencil",
"kind": "cws",
"created_at": "2017-11-11 00:26:52",
"updated_at": "2017-11-11 00:26:52",
"thumbs_count": "1",
"thumbs_yes_count": "0",
"latest_comment": {
"id": 1,
"body": "huh?",
"displayname_id": 1,
"extension_id": 2,
"created_at": "2017-11-11 00:26:56",
"updated_at": "2017-11-11 00:26:56"
}
}
]
Here is screesnhots of my phpMyAdmin's:
My remote phpMyAdmin is this -
And my local is this -
Here is a screenshot of the table structure, please notice that id column's are also unsigned, however they are not being json_encode'ed into string.
Here is export screenshot: https://screenshots.firefoxusercontent.com/images/51d1e47f-fe78-4cdc-8de4-b113d4b576a9.png
Here is import screenshot: https://screenshots.firefoxusercontent.com/images/ff112f86-1c1c-4554-b03c-4b15307c042a.png

Answer 1

The difference is your MySQL client driver. Your local machine is using the MySQL Native Driver (mysqlnd), whereas your remote server is using the MySQL Client Library (libmysql).
The native driver (mysqlnd) will treat all integers from the database as integers in PHP. However, the client library (libmysql) will treat all fields as strings in PHP.
The reason that the id field shows up as an integer on both servers is because of some Laravel magic. Laravel uses the model's $casts property to cast specific fields to specific types when accessed. If your $incrementing property on your model is true (which it is by default), Laravel automatically adds the primary key field (default id) to the $casts property with the type defined by the $keyType property (default int). Because of this, whenever you access the id field, it will be a PHP integer.
If you want the integer fields to be treated as integers, you could install the MySQL Native Driver (mysqlnd) on your remote server.
If that is not an option, or not desirable, you can specify that those fields be treated as integers using the $casts property:
protected $casts = [
'displayname_id' => 'int',
'extension_id' => 'int',
];
Now those two fields will be treated as integers regardless of the MySQL driver used.
If you wanted the id to be treated as a string, you have a couple options.
First, you could change the $keyType value to string, but that may have unintended consequences. For example, the relationHasIncrementingId on the BelongsTo class checks if the key is incrementing and if the key type is int, so this method will return false if you change the $keyType to string.
Second, you could directly add 'id' => 'string' to your $casts array, as the $casts value takes priority over the $keyType value when accessing the attribute. This would be safer and more semantically correct than changing the $keyType value.
And third, if you wanted the id to be treated as a string only for JSON conversions, you could override the jsonSerialize() method on your model.
public function jsonSerialize()
{
$data = parent::jsonSerialize();
if (isset($data[$this->primaryKey])) {
$data[$this->primaryKey] = $this->castAttribute('string', $data[$this->primaryKey]);
}
return $data;
}

Answer 2

For Sure this problem is coming from your database OR an old version of php < 5.2.9
But you can try to pass JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK option to your json_encode and you are done, it will turn strings representing numbers automatically into numbers:
Native PHP solution:
echo json_encode($a, JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK);
Online Example
Laravel solution:
return response()->json($a, 200, [], JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK);