How to use php serialize() and unserialize()

Solution 1:

A PHP array or object or other complex data structure cannot be transported or stored or otherwise used outside of a running PHP script. If you want to persist such a complex data structure beyond a single run of a script, you need to serialize it. That just means to put the structure into a "lower common denominator" that can be handled by things other than PHP, like databases, text files, sockets. The standard PHP function serialize is just a format to express such a thing, it serializes a data structure into a string representation that's unique to PHP and can be reversed into a PHP object using unserialize. There are many other formats though, like JSON or XML.

Take for example this common problem:

How do I pass a PHP array to Javascript?

PHP and Javascript can only communicate via strings. You can pass the string "foo" very easily to Javascript. You can pass the number 1 very easily to Javascript. You can pass the boolean values true and false easily to Javascript. But how do you pass this array to Javascript?

Array ( [1] => elem 1 [2] => elem 2 [3] => elem 3 ) 

The answer is serialization. In case of PHP/Javascript, JSON is actually the better serialization format:

{ 1 : 'elem 1', 2 : 'elem 2', 3 : 'elem 3' }

Javascript can easily reverse this into an actual Javascript array.

This is just as valid a representation of the same data structure though:

a:3:{i:1;s:6:"elem 1";i:2;s:6:"elem 2";i:3;s:7:" elem 3";}

But pretty much only PHP uses it, there's little support for this format anywhere else.
This is very common and well supported as well though:

<array>
    <element key='1'>elem 1</element>
    <element key='2'>elem 2</element>
    <element key='3'>elem 3</element>
</array>

There are many situations where you need to pass complex data structures around as strings. Serialization, representing arbitrary data structures as strings, solves how to do this.

Solution 2:

PHP serialize() unserialize() usage

http://freeonlinetools24.com/serialize

echo '<pre>';
// say you have an array something like this 
$multidimentional_array= array(
    array(
        array("rose", 1.25, 15),
        array("daisy", 0.75, 25),
        array("orchid", 4, 7) 
       ),
    array(
        array("rose", 1.25, 15),
        array("daisy", 0.75, 25),
        array("orchid", 5, 7) 
       ),
    array(
        array("rose", 1.25, 15),
        array("daisy", 0.75, 25),
        array("orchid", 8, 7) 
    )
);

// serialize 
$serialized_array=serialize($multidimentional_array);
print_r($serialized_array);

Which gives you an output something like this

a:3:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;s:4:"rose";i:1;d:1.25;i:2;i:15;}i:1;a:3:{i:0;s:5:"daisy";i:1;d:0.75;i:2;i:25;}i:2;a:3:{i:0;s:6:"orchid";i:1;i:4;i:2;i:7;}}i:1;a:3:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;s:4:"rose";i:1;d:1.25;i:2;i:15;}i:1;a:3:{i:0;s:5:"daisy";i:1;d:0.75;i:2;i:25;}i:2;a:3:{i:0;s:6:"orchid";i:1;i:5;i:2;i:7;}}i:2;a:3:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;s:4:"rose";i:1;d:1.25;i:2;i:15;}i:1;a:3:{i:0;s:5:"daisy";i:1;d:0.75;i:2;i:25;}i:2;a:3:{i:0;s:6:"orchid";i:1;i:8;i:2;i:7;}}}

again if you want to get the original array back just use PHP unserialize() function

$original_array=unserialize($serialized_array);
var_export($original_array);

I hope this will help

Solution 3:

<?php
$a= array("1","2","3");
print_r($a);
$b=serialize($a);
echo $b;
$c=unserialize($b);
print_r($c);

Run this program its echo the output

a:3:{i:0;s:1:"1";i:1;s:1:"2";i:2;s:1:"3";}

you can use serialize to store array of data in database
and can retrieve and UN-serialize data to use.

Solution 4:

When you want to make your php value storable, you have to turn it to be a string value, that is what serialize() does. And unserialize() does the reverse thing.