I was previously using file_get_contents to retrieve a JSON document like this:
$json = file_get_contents('php://input');
But when trying to add special characters such as ÷ to the json... file_get_contents is apparently decoding it as ASCII instead of UTF8 and so the ÷ symbol is converted u00f7.
Can I force file_get_contents to decode the php://input document as UTF8? Or is there something else I can do like pull the document out as binary in some way and then manually decode it myself?
Turns out that file_get_contents was decoding as /u00f7 which is correct. I didn't want to it decode with an escape sequence. The process was breaking down as I was saving into the database and retrieving. Ensuring that the escape sequence was being saved into the database in its whole allowed proper retrieval and serving out to clients needing the info.