JSON passes string instead of array or object from PHP to Javascript

Question

I am having som trouble with passing a multidimensional and associative array from php to Javascript. I converte it with JSON, using:

_SESSION =  '<?php print json_encode($_SESSION) ?>';

I have also tried

_SESSION =  '<?php print json_encode($_SESSION, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT) ?>';
_SESSION =  $.parseJSON('<?php print json_encode($_SESSION) ?>');

both of them give me errors like: Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL.

However, the first one doesn't give me any errors and I can access it in Javascript. It then outputs:

{"items":{"221163":{"CodeComplete":null,"Project":"Coding","Team":"Mail","TimeSpent":25","Children":[]}}, {"221165":{CodeComplete":null,"Project":"Coding","Team":"Batman","TimeSpent":"40","Children":[]}}

I belive this is like a string, since _SESSION[0] outputs "{". However, I want it to be an array or an object. The Array looks like this in php:

_SESSION( "items" => array(
                        221163 =>
                                 array( CodeComplete => null
                                        Project => "Coding"
                                        Team => "Mail"
                                        Timespent => "25"
                                        Children => array(
                                                           )
                                      )
                        221165 =>
                                 array( CodeComplete => null
                                        Project => "Coding"
                                        Team => "Stones"
                                        Timespent => "40"
                                        Children => array(
                                                           )
                                       )

                           )             
        )

I want to be able to access this array in the same way as I can in php (not litterary ofcorse) but _SESSION["items"] or _SESSION.items is undefined as _SESSION is a string...

Any ideas of what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

Just as @CD001 suggested in his comment, I removed the '' from the transfer so that it became

_SESSION = <?php print json_encode($_SESSION) ?>; 

instead and now everything works fine, thank you!