note 77826 modified in function.unserialize by aharvey

Ignore all the advice to implement __autoload-ers or magical handlers, to solve problems when retrieving class instances from sessions. It leads to terrible debugging nightmares. After fussing with all sorts of such solutions and getting nowhere, I\'ve found a very simple solution that works correctly and explicitly: $_SESSION[\'myInstance\'] = serialize($myInstance); .... $myInstance_s = @$_SESSION[\'myInstance\'] if (!is_null($myInstance_s)) { $myInstance = unserialize($myInstance_s); } In other words, serialize the thing as a string, and put it in the session in this state - you regain control of the unserialization process and can code to handle exception cases rather than praying php\'s black magic does the right thing (and being sorely disappointed when it doesn\'t). --was-- Ignore all the advice to implement __autoload-ers or magical handlers, to solve problems when retrieving class instances from sessions. It leads to terrible debugging nightmares. After fussing with all sorts of such solutions and getting nowhere, I've found a very simple solution that works correctly and explicitly: $_SESSION['myInstance'] = serialize($myInstance); .... $myInstance_s = @$SESSION['myInstance'] if (!is_null($myInstance_s)) { $myInstance = unserialize($myInstance_s); } In other words, serialize the thing as a string, and put it in the session in this state - you regain control of the unserialization process and can code to handle exception cases rather than praying php's black magic does the right thing (and being sorely disappointed when it doesn't). http://php.net/manual/en/function.unserialize.php