PHP 8 Programming Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices/

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Solution: Serialize and Unserialize Different Data Structures

Solution: Serialize and Unserialize Different Data Structures

A detailed review of the solutions to the previous challenge involving serialization and unserailization of several data structures such as arrays, SPL library objects, and doubly linked lists.

We'll cover the following...

The code widget below contains the solution to the challenge. We will also go through a step-by-step explanation of the solution.

Solution to Task 1

This task demonstrates how to initialize an array object with two keys. Serialize and unserialize the ArrayObject and then iterate over it to display its contents.

PHP
<?php
// create an ArrayObject and add some data
$arrayObj = new ArrayObject([
    "name" => "Alice",
    "age" => 30
]);
// serialize the ArrayObject
$data = serialize($arrayObj);
// unserialize the data
$arrayObj = unserialize($data);
// get the name and age values
$name = $arrayObj["name"];
$age = $arrayObj["age"];
// create an ArrayIterator and iterate over the data
$iterator = $arrayObj->getIterator();
while($iterator->valid()) {
    echo $iterator->key() . ": " . $iterator->current() . "\n";
    $iterator->next();
}
?>

Let’s get into the code.

  • Lines 3–6: An ArrayObject is created with two keys, name and age, and their respective values, Alice and 30.

  • Line 9: The ArrayObject is then serialized using the serialize() function, and the ...