Joomla! Documentation™

In the function

/** * Overloaded load function * * @param int $pk primary key * @param boolean $reset reset data * @return boolean * @see JTable:load */ public function load($pk = null, $reset = true) { if (parent::load($pk, $reset)) { // Convert the params field to a registry. $params = new JRegistry;

                      // loadJSON is @deprecated    12.1  Use loadString passing JSON as the format instead.
                      // $params->loadString($this->item->params, 'JSON');

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

                      $params->loadJSON($this->item->params);

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

$this->params = $params; return true; } else { return false; } }

The line bracketed above is actually, $params->loadJSON($this->params); I am not sure which is 100% correct.