PHP::Serialization - simple flexible means of converting the output of PHP's serialize() into the equivalent Perl memory structure, and vice versa. use PHP::Serialization qw(serialize unserialize); my $encoded = serialize({ a => 1, b => 2}); my $hashref = unserialize($encoded); Provides a simple, quick means of serializing perl memory structures (including object data!) into a format that PHP can deserialize() and access, and vice versa. NOTE: Converts PHP arrays into Perl Arrays when the PHP array used exclusively numeric indexes, and into Perl Hashes then the PHP array did not. Exportable functions..

serialize($var)
Serializes the memory structure pointed to by $var, and returns a scalar value of encoded data. NOTE: Will recursively encode objects, hashes, arrays, etc. SEE ALSO: ->encode()

unserialize($encoded,[optional CLASS])
Deserializes the encoded data in $encoded, and returns a value (be it a hashref, arrayref, scalar, etc) representing the data structure serialized in $encoded_string. If the optional CLASS is specified, any objects are blessed into CLASS::$serialized_class. Otherwise, O bjects are blessed into PHP::Serialization::Object::$serialized_class. (which has no methods) SEE ALSO: ->decode() Functionality available if using the object interface..

decode($encoded_string,[optional CLASS])
Deserializes the encoded data in $encoded, and returns a value (be it a hashref, arrayref, scalar, etc) representing the data structure serialized in $encoded_string. If the optional CLASS is specified, any objects are blessed into CLASS::$serialized_class. Otherwise, Objects are blessed into PHP::Serialization::Object::$serialized_class. (which has no methods) SEE ALSO: unserialize()

encode($reference)
Serializes the memory structure pointed to by $var, and returns a scalar value of encoded data. NOTE: Will recursively encode objects, hashes, arrays, etc. SEE ALSO: serialize() Make faster! (and more efficent?) Copyright (c) 2003 Jesse Brown <jbrown@cpan.org>. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. Various patches contributed by assorted authors on rt.cpan.org (as detailed in Changes file). Currently maintained by Tomas Doran <bobtfish@bobtfish.net>.