Introduction

Zend_Serializer provides an adapter based interface to simply generate storable representation of PHP types by different facilities, and recover.

Example #1 Using Zend_Serializer dynamic interface

To instantiate a serializer you should use the factory method with the name of the adapter:

span style="color: #ff0000;">'PhpSerialize');
// Now $serializer is an instance of Zend_Serializer_Adapter_AdapterInterface,
// specifically Zend_Serializer_Adapter_PhpSerialize
// now $serialized is a string
// now $data == $unserialized

The method serialize() generates a storable string. To regenerate this serialized data you can simply call the method unserialize().

Any time an error is encountered serializing or unserializing, Zend_Serializer will throw a Zend_Serializer_Exception.

To configure a given serializer adapter, you can optionally add an array or an instance of Zend_Config to the factory() or to the serialize() and unserialize() methods:

span style="color: #ff0000;">'Wddx''comment' => 'serialized by Zend_Serializer''comment' => 'change comment'/* options for unserialize */

Options passed to the factory() are valid for the instantiated object. You can change these options using the setOption(s) method. To change one or more options only for a single call, pass them as the second argument to either the serialize() or unserialize() method.

Example #2 Using the Zend_Serializer static interface

You can register a specific serializer adapter as a default serialization adapter for use with Zend_Serializer. By default, the PhpSerialize adapter will be registered, but you can change this option using the setDefaultAdapter() static method.

span style="color: #ff0000;">'PhpSerialize', $options);
// or
'PhpSerialize'