The Serializable interface

    (PHP 5 >= 5.1.0, PHP 7, PHP 8)

    Introduction

    Interface for customized serializing.

    Classes that implement this interface no longer support __sleep() and __wakeup(). The method serialize is called whenever an instance needs to be serialized. This does not invoke __destruct() or have any other side effect unless programmed inside the method. When the data is unserialized the class is known and the appropriate unserialize() method is called as a constructor instead of calling __construct(). If you need to execute the standard constructor you may do so in the method.

    Warning

    As of PHP 8.1.0, a class which implements Serializable without also implementing __serialize() and __unserialize() will generate a deprecation warning.

    Interface synopsis

    interfaceSerializable {
    publicserialize(): ?string
    publicunserialize(string$data): void
    }

    Example #1 Basic usage

    <?php
    class obj implements Serializable {
    private     $data;
    public function     __construct() {
    $this->data = "My private data";
    }
    public function     serialize() {
    return     serialize($this->data);
    }
    public function     unserialize($data) {
    $this->data = unserialize($data);
    }
    public function     getData() {
    return     $this->data;
    }
    }

    $obj = new obj;
    $ser = serialize($obj);

    var_dump($ser);

    $newobj = unserialize($ser);

    var_dump($newobj->getData());
    ?>

    The above example will output something similar to:

     string(38) "C:3:"obj":23:{s:15:"My private data";}" string(15) "My private data"

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