Php Serialize Unserialize

What You Need to Know About PHP’s serialize() and unserialize() Functions

You might have seen weird strings in database fields like in WordPress, something like the following:

a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}

If you don’t understand what this string is or are not sure, do not worry!

The above string is actually a piece of serialized data that has been created using PHP’s serialize() function. If you want to know what the original data has been, pass this string to unserialize(), another convenient PHP function that reverses the serialization to give you the data before it was serialized.

Here’s the output of unserialize('a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}'):

php > print_r( unserialize('a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}'));
Array
(
    [administrator] => 1
)

So the two functions are complements and can be very handy. Example usecases of the output of these functions has been seen in WordPress tables.

How It Works

By looking at the original data and the serialized string, you can guess:

• First the data type is specified (a:1 is an array of length 1)
• The curly braces open and close the array
• s:13 is a string of length 13
• administrator is the key
• and it has a boolean value of 1

Another Example

php > echo serialize(['administrator'=>100, 'age' => '30']);
a:2:{s:13:"administrator";i:100;s:3:"age";s:2:"30";}

php > print_r(unserialize('a:2:{s:13:"administrator";i:100;s:3:"age";s:2:"30";}'));
Array
(
    [administrator] => 100
    [age] => 30
)
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