#17490 [Com]: serialize() generates a string that unserialize() can't handle

ID: 17490 Comment by: dougqh@incogen.com Reported By: weyrick@roadsend.com Status: Open Bug Type: Session related Operating System: linux rh7.2 PHP Version: 4.2.1 New Comment: My problem is not improperly using __sleep. Referencing complexity definitely seems to be part of the problem. I am serializing multiple groups of objects for different purposes. Some of my object structures have relatively simple referencing complexity, and I can get away with using the standard serializer on those objects. Others are far more free form and complicated, and I cannot safely use the standard serializer on those objects. At one point, I created a failure in my "simple" objects (the ones using the standard serializer) when I tried to add an associative array of numeric arrays of objects to the top-level object being serialized. The objects in the numeric array pointed back to the top-level object containing the associative array. Old referencing structure ... object A -member is-> associative array -elements are-> arrays -elements are-> objects -points to-> object A I resolved this problem by removing the associative array from the equation and creating dynamically named variables to directly contain the object arrays. New referencing structure ... object A -members are-> arrays -elements are-> objects -points to-> object A Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-09-09 13:09:57] weyrick@roadsend.com i'm not sure about the others who were having similiar problems, but the problem i was having has been solved. it turned out to be a misuse of the __sleep() method in my base object. i mistakenly thought the method should have been unsetting variables not to be serialized, when in fact it needed to return an array of variables TO serialize. once this mistake was caught and fixed, serialization of my objects started working. it would still seem to be a bug in PHP, however, to have the actual unserialize call fail directly after a serialize call. this should give a good starting point for the developers to look at, and others who were having a similiar problem can check their code. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-08-22 14:17:58] dougqh@incogen.com As others have said, the problem seems linked to the complexity of the variable being serialized and not strictly the size of the result string. Of note, the WDDX serializer serialized and unserialized my object array without any problems, but its lack of reference support may account for that. I actually needed references preserved, so for now I am using a combination of pre-serialization and post-unserialization processing in combination with WDDX as a work around. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-08-22 00:38:47] mark.hershenson@aresdirect.com I just downloaded, compiled, and restarted Apache 1.3.26 with the latest php4-latest.tar.gz and no change. In fact, it would seem that there is now a regression - a 10 element array with objects in each index now won't even serialize. In order not to clutter the bug DB, the following link should help you to see the issue and data structures at play here: http://www.green-ant.com/serialize-issues.php I included the Debug::Debug() function, but not the base classes for NDA reasons. Since it's the data that gets serialized, not the functions, that shouldn't be a problem. ;) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-08-21 21:08:11] sniper@php.net Please try using this CVS snapshot: http://snaps.php.net/php4-latest.tar.gz For Windows: http://snaps.php.net/win32/php4-win32-latest.zip ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-08-21 14:53:02] mark.hershenson@aresdirect.com [It would seem that this and bug #18404 are related, in case anyone wanted to combine them.] I am currently debugging an issue which I am finding hard to find which centers on trying to serialize and deserialize very complex objects which, when serialized, are around 580k in size. It's all part of a custom session handler. However, I have run into this particular problem myself, and it is causing me fits. Even if I break some of the items into their component parts, the serialization will fail, but it would appear it is the complexity of the objects, not the size of the string which seems to determine failure. To get around the issue, I have had to write a custom serializer, but am now running into a PHP userland limitation of not being able to cast a stdClass to the desired class without having to call the constructor of the destination class without knowing the variables to pass to it. Considering the ease of use of sessions and the serialize/deserialize functions, shouldn't this be more highly assigned in the outstanding bug database? I can volunteer whatever time is necessary to get this fixed, but will definitely need help from those who know how the engine works better than I. ======= My configure and system info: './configure' '--with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql' '--enable-track-vars' '--enable-inline-optimizations' '--enable-wddx' '--with-dom=/usr/local/libxml' '--with-dom-xslt=/usr/local/libxslt' '--with-dom-exslt=/usr/local/libxslt' '--with-zlib-dir' '--with-apxs=/opt/apache13/sbin/apxs' '--quiet' RedHat 7.3 / Linux aries.aresdirect.com 2.4.7-10 #1 Thu Sep 6 17:27:27 EDT 2001 i686 unknown [markhers@aries ~]$ uname -a Linux aries.aresdirect.com 2.4.7-10 #1 Thu Sep 6 17:27:27 EDT 2001 i686 unknown [markhers@aries ~]$ gcc -v Reading specs from /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/2.96/specs gcc version 2.96 20000731 (Red Hat Linux 7.1 2.96-98) From phpinfo(): API Versions: PHP: 20020307 PHP Extension: 20020429 Zend Extension: 20020731 Server sig: Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) PHP/4.3.0-dev ---------------- -- mjh ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The remainder of the comments for this report are too long. To view the rest of the comments, please view the bug report online at http://bugs.php.net/17490 -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=17490&edit=1