note 76099 added to function.var-export

I have been looking for the best method to store data in cache files. First, I've identified two limitations of var_export verus serialize. It can't store internal references inside of an array and it can't store a nested object or an array containing objects before PHP 5.1.0. However, I could deal with both of those so I created a benchmark. I used a single array containing from 10 to 150 indexes. I've generate the elements' values randomly using booleans, nulls, integers, floats, and some nested arrays (the nested arrays are smaller averaging 5 elements but created similarly). The largest percentage of elements are short strings around 10-15 characters. While there is a small number of long strings (around 500 characters). Benchmarking returned these results for 1000 * [total time] / [iterations (4000 in this case)] serialize 3.656, 3.575, 3.68, 3.933, mean of 3.71 include 7.099, 5.42, 5.185, 6.076, mean of 5.95 eval 5.514, 5.204, 5.011, 5.788, mean of 5.38 Meaning serialize is around 1 and a half times faster than var_export for a single large array. include and eval were consistently very close but eval was usually a few tenths faster (eval did better this particular set of trials than usual). An opcode cache like APC might make include faster, but otherwise serialize is the best choice. ---- Server IP: 208.69.120.35 Probable Submitter: 207.32.22.145 ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.var-export.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/76099 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/76099/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/76099/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/76099/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/76099/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/76099/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/76099/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/76099 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/76099 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php