Change codeigniter session to work with JSON

MY_Session.php

<?php
class MY_Session extends CI_Session {

    /**
     * Serialize an array
     *
     * This function first converts any slashes found in the array to a temporary
     * marker, so when it gets unserialized the slashes will be preserved
     *
     * @access	private
     * @param	array
     * @return	string
     */
    function _serialize($data)
    {
        if (is_array($data))
        {
            foreach ($data as $key => $val)
            {
                if (is_string($val))
                {
                    $data[$key] = str_replace('\\', '{{slash}}', $val);
                }
            }
        }
        else
        {
            if (is_string($data))
            {
                $data = str_replace('\\', '{{slash}}', $data);
            }
        }

        return json_encode($data);
    }

    // --------------------------------------------------------------------

    /**
     * Unserialize
     *
     * This function unserializes a data string, then converts any
     * temporary slash markers back to actual slashes
     *
     * @access	private
     * @param	array
     * @return	string
     */
    function _unserialize($data)
    {
        $data = @json_decode($data,TRUE);
        if (is_array($data))
        {
            foreach ($data as $key => $val)
            {
                if (is_string($val))
                {
                    $data[$key] = str_replace('{{slash}}', '\\', $val);
                }
            }
            return $data;
        }

        return (is_string($data)) ? str_replace('{{slash}}', '\\', $data) : $data;
    }
}

This solved my character encoding problem with ISO and UTF-8 data 👍 Thanks!