json_encode() Invalid UTF-8 sequence in argument Array .... json_encode alternative --> local_json_encode

I had to code with an old latin2 encoded portal system. I got json_encode() Invalid UTF-8 sequence in argument Array .... warning. The json_encode() function did this warning. I changed to my own json_encode() function. This source helped me: https://gist.github.com/jorgeatorres/1239453 function local_json_encode($a=false) { if (is_null($a)) return 'null'; if ($a === false) return 'false'; if ($a === true) return 'true'; if (is_scalar($a)) { if (is_float($a)) { // Always use "." for floats. return floatval(str_replace(",", ".", strval($a))); } if (is_string($a)) { static $jsonReplaces = array(array("\\", "/", "\n", "\t", "\r", "\b", "\f", '"'), array('\\\\', '\\/', '\\n', '\\t', '\\r', '\\b', '\\f', '\"')); return '"' . str_replace($jsonReplaces[0], $jsonReplaces[1], $a) . '"'; } else return $a; } $isList = true; for ($i = 0, reset($a); $i < count($a); $i++, next($a)) { if (key($a) !== $i) { $isList = false; break; } } $result = array(); if ($isList) { foreach ($a as $v) $result[] = local_json_encode($v); return '[' . join(',', $result) . ']'; } else { foreach ($a as $k => $v) $result[] = local_json_encode($k).':'.local_json_encode($v); return '{' . join(',', $result) . '}'; } }