#33586 [Com]: Serialization breaks references

ID: 33586 Comment by: jfranklin at gmail dot com Reported By: wmeler at wp dot pl Status: Assigned Bug Type: Scripting Engine problem Operating System: * PHP Version: 5CVS-2005-07-06 Assigned To: dmitry New Comment: I apologize for "cluttering the database" as you say, but this would be a super bug to put some time into and get fixed. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2005-10-07 04:36:42] james at gogo dot co dot nz This has always been a problem, at least in 4.x (I presume it still is the same), I wrote an article about it a couple of years back now. http://code.gogo.co.nz/dev-2-dev/serialize-unserialize.html The workaround that worked at the time at least is to force passing in a reference: $serializedFoo = serialize(&$myFoo); ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2005-09-02 18:28:07] sr at brightlight dot ch I experienced a similar problem. An even simpler setup already breaks unserialisation (php 5.0.4): $rec = array('rec' => 'x'); $rec['rec'] = &$rec; echo "print_r:\n".print_r($rec, true); echo "\nafter unserialisation:\n".print_r(unserialize (serialize($rec)), true); The output will be: print_r: Array ( [rec] => Array *RECURSION* ) after unserialisation: Array ( [rec] => Array ( [rec] => ) ) With a few more dimensions before the recursion php will even crash on OS X 10.4.1 regards ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2005-07-22 08:52:12] wmeler at wp dot pl Do you want simplest to debug example or complicated real world example? How about this : <? $c = array(); $d = array(); $c['d2']=&$d; $d['c2']=&$c; $x=unserialize(serialize($c)); $x['x']='x'; $c['x']='x'; var_dump($c); var_dump($x); ?> outputs remain the same you can even substitute 'c' with 'parent' and 'd' with 'child' which makes it more real but this would change outputs ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2005-07-22 01:03:09] sniper@php.net In your example you're making a reference to a non-existing variable. Please come up with something more realistic. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2005-07-06 12:51:21] wmeler at wp dot pl I've tried - nothing changed ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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/33586 -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=33586&edit=1