wp-includes/class-json.php:290encodes an arbitrary variable into JSON format (and sends JSON Header)
$varmixedmixed function encode($var) { _deprecated_function( __METHOD__, '5.3.0', 'The PHP native JSON extension' ); header('Content-Type: application/json'); return $this->encodeUnsafe($var); }Unchanged from 6.7.7 through 7.1.0.
Signature, return type and hooks compared across 5 parsed releases.
src/wp-includes/class-json.php, and regenerated for each WordPress release so it tracks the code rather than a snapshot of it.