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The joys of serializing data

by filburt1 18 Jun 2003

To serialize a variable or object in PHP means to take the variable or object and convert it to a string that can be stored anywhere, including, relevant to vB, a MySQL database. Later, it can be unserialized, at which point it'll be (nearly) exactly the same as when it was serialized.

An example:

PHP Code:


$serialized = serialize($myobject);

.

.

.

$myobjectagain = unserialize($serialized);

$myobjectagain->method();

Remember to addslashes $serialized when making a query because it could contain quotes. Also note that some tiny things can be lost when serializing; namely, internal array pointers, among others.

Reference:
http://www.php.net/serialize
http://www.php.net/unserialize (way faster than serializing)

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