It is worth noting that an alternative solution is to use the MySQL JSON UDFs which can be found at http://www.mysqludf.org/lib_mysqludf_json/ http://www.mysqlu

It is worth noting that an alternative solution is to use the MySQL JSON UDFs which can be found at http://www.mysqludf.org/lib_mysqludf_json/ http://www.mysqludf.org/lib_mysqludf_json/ That way, you can simply invoke the function you require in the query, instead of processing it in PHP.