Serializing data

Hello, I have functions DBA_Table that serialize/deserialize schema information which is saved within a table. The functions, _packSchema($schema) and _unpackSchema($schema), work well, but leave some things to be desired; namely the reliance on punctuation marks for formatting and the absence of string literal support (useful for default values of varchars and such). Here's an example of output: id;type=integer;auto_increment=1;default=2|name;type=varchar;size=45|notes;type=text|active;type=boolean|_rowid;type=integer;default=2;auto_increment=1|_timestamp;type=timestamp;default=time();default_type=function Before I get into hacking these functions to work better and break data-file compatibility again (DBA is still developmental), does anyone have suggestions for other ways to serialize structured data (arrays)? I had initially considered PHP's serialize/deserialize functions, but they aren't cross-language (something important with data formats that would be useful to access elsewhere), though I found a PERL parser for this here: http://hurring.com/code/perl/serialize/ I've also been looking at wddx, which looks to be more amicable with other languages. However, it may not be widely available with PHP installations and I want to keep the prerequisites low. What say you? Should I stick with my old methods, write new ones, or is there something better? - Brent