php has the function of formatting strings and converting them into arrays or objects. Method, that is, serialization processing.
There are two ways to serialize variables.
The following example, using the serialize() and unserialize() functions:
// a complex array $myvar = array( 'hello', 42, array(1,'two'), 'apple' ); // convert to a string $string = serialize($myvar); echo $string; /* prints a:4:{i:0;s:5:"hello";i:1;i:42;i:2;a:2:{i:0;i:1;i:1;s:3:"two";}i:3;s:5:"apple";} */ // you can reproduce the original variable $newvar = unserialize($string); print_r($newvar); /* prints Array ( [0] => hello [1] => 42 [2] => Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => two ) [3] => apple ) */
This is the native PHP serialization method.
However, due to the popularity of JSON in recent years, support for the JSON format has been added to PHP5.2.
Now you can use json_encode() and json_decode() functions:
// a complex array $myvar = array( 'hello', 42, array(1,'two'), 'apple' ); // convert to a string $string = json_encode($myvar); echo $string; /* prints ["hello",42,[1,"two"],"apple"] */ // you can reproduce the original variable $newvar = json_decode($string); print_r($newvar); /* prints Array ( [0] => hello [1] => 42 [2] => Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => two ) [3] => apple ) */
This will be more efficient and especially compatible with many other languages such as JavaScript.
Note: For complex objects, some information may be lost.
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