Pass an JavaScript object to a HIDDEN input field, and catch it as an array/object on the Server-Side

I have a field on my page, like this:

<input type="hidden" name="myField" id="myField" />

and I have a piece of code that looks like this:

$(document).ready(function() {
    var myObject = {
        item1: 'item1 value',
        item2: 'item2 value',
        item3: 'item3 value',
        item4: 'item4 value',
    };

    $('#myField').val(myObject);
});

And when I submit 开发者_开发问答this form, I catch and ouput the $_POST variable with print_r/var_dump functions and I get the following output for this Form Field (myField).

[myField] => [object Object]

How can I throw an JavaScript array/object to a form field and to have it evaluated/converted to a propper data-type on the server-side, so I could get it like this in my PHP script:

[myField] => Array(
    item1 => item1 value
    item2 => item2 value
    item3 => item3 value
    item4 => item4 value
)

How to achive this, without hard coding?

Encode the object as JSON ^[Wikipedia]:

$('#myField').val(JSON.stringify(myObject));

and decode it at the server side with json_decode ^[docs].

The JSON ^[docs] object is available in recent browsers and can also be included as library.