"Brian V Bonini" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> What exactly does
> serialize/deserialize data
> mean?
See the manual at http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.serialize.php.
Serializing is a way of storing values so that they retain their type and
structure. Session variables are stored in this way. Here's a serialized
set of session variables from an intranet application I wrote:
employee_id|s:4:"7204";logged_in|i:1;name_l|s:7:"Edmonds";name_f|s:5:"Larry"
;component_id|a:5:{i:0;s:4:"1001";i:1;s:4:"1002";i:2;s:4:"1003";i:3;s:4:"100
4";i:4;s:7:"1002101";}
unserialize( $var_name ) will pull transform the values back into their
normal state.
If you want to pass form data from page to page (arrays in particular),
store an array in a single field of a database or store values and retain
the fact that they're an integers, strings, etc. serialize is a good way to
accomplish this. I hope that helped clarify serialize a little. If not,
just play with it a little to understand it.
--
Steve Werby
COO
24-7 Computer Services, LLC
Tel: 804.817.2470
http://www.247computing.com/
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