Matrix display_cell() encoding entities when returning json string

Question

I've come across an issue where I've got a celltype which contains array data stored as a JSON string.

When I json_encode the array and return it on save_cell(), display_cell() then returns the JSON quote wrappers as entities?

What I expect:

[{"first_name":"Garret","last_name":"Winder"},{"first_name":"Jeff","last_name":"Claeson"},{"first_name":"Paul","last_name":"Burton"}]

What I get:

[{"first_name":"Garret","last_name":"Winder"},{"first_name":"Jeff","last_name":"Claeson"},{"first_name":"Paul","last_name":"Burton"}]

Is there any way I can disable this in Matrix? Presumably if I set the column formatting to 'none' somehow in the cell settings it'll resolve it - I couldn't see how to do that in the docs?

For now I'm just finding and replacing the " entities before decoding...

Thanks Iain

Answer 1

The issue here seems to be that in Matrix 2.3 form_prep is called during the display_cell method:

Cell data is now run through form_prep(), just like normal field data

If you're outputting the input with form_textarea or form_input that also calls form_prep() leading to the double encoding.