Introduction

zend-serialzier provides an adapter-based interface for serializing and deserializing PHP types to and from different representations.

For more information what a serializer is read the wikipedia page of Serialization.

Quick Start

Serializing adapters can either be created from the provided Zend\Serializer\Serializer::factory method, or by instantiating one of the Zend\Serializer\Adapter\* classes.

use Zend\Serializer\Adapter;
use Zend\Serializer\Exception;
use Zend\Serializer\Serializer;

// Via factory:
$serializer = Serializer::factory(Adapter\PhpSerialize::class);

// Alternately:
$serializer = new Adapter\PhpSerialize();

// Now $serializer is an instance of Zend\Serializer\Adapter\AdapterInterface,
// specifically Zend\Serializer\Adapter\PhpSerialize

try {
    $serialized = $serializer->serialize($data);
    // now $serialized is a string

    $unserialized = $serializer->unserialize($serialized);
    // now $data == $unserialized
} catch (Exception\ExceptionInterface $e) {
    echo $e;
}

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

Any time an error is encountered serializing or unserializing, the adapter will throw a Zend\Serializer\Exception\ExceptionInterface.

Because an application often uses only one serializer internally, it is possible to define and use a default serializer. That serializer will be used by default by other components like Zend\Cache\Storage\Plugin\Serializer.

To define and use the default serializer, use the static serialization methods of the basic Zend\Serializer\Serializer:

use Zend\Serializer\Adapter;
use Zend\Serializer\Exception;
use Zend\Serializer\Serializer;

Serializer::setDefaultAdapter(Adapter\PhpSerialize::class);

try {
    $serialized = Serializer::serialize($data);
    // now $serialized is a string

    $unserialized = Serializer::unserialize($serialized);
    // now $data == $unserialized
} catch (Exception\ExceptionInterface $e) {
    echo $e;
}

Basic configuration Options

To configure a serializer adapter, you can optionally use an instance of Zend\Serializer\Adapter\AdapterOptions, an instance of one of the adapter specific options class, an array, or a Traversable object. The adapter will convert it into the adapter specific options class instance (if present) or into the basic Zend\Serializer\Adapter\AdapterOptions class instance.

Options can be passed as the second argument to the provided Zend\Serializer\Serializer::factory and ::setDefaultAdapter methods, via the adapter's setOptions method, or as constructor arguments when directly instantiating an adapter.

Available Methods

Each serializer implements the interface Zend\Serializer\Adapter\AdapterInterface.

This interface defines the following methods:

The base class Zend\Serializer\Serializer is used to instantiate the adapters, to configure the factory, and as a proxy for serialization operations.

It defines the following static methods, where the following references map to classes/interfaces as follows:

• AdapterPluginManager: Zend\Serializer\AdapterPluginManager
• AdapterInterface: Zend\Serializer\Adapter\AdapterInterface
• AdapterOptions: Zend\Serializer\Adapter\AdapterOptions