unserialize

Description

unserialize() takes a single serialized variable (see serialize() ) and converts it back into a PHP value. The converted value is returned, and can be an integer , double , string , array or object . If an object was serialized, its methods are not preserved in the returned value.

Example 1. unserialize example // Here, we use unserialize() to load session data from a database // into $session_data. This example complements the one described // with serialize() . $conn = odbc_connect("webdb", "php", "chicken"); $stmt = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT data FROM sessions WHERE id = ?"); $sqldata = array($PHP_AUTH_USER); if (!odbc_execute($stmt, &$sqldata) || !odbc_fetch_into($stmt, &$tmp)) { // if the execute or fetch fails, initialize to empty array $session_data = array(); } else { // we should now have the serialized data in $tmp[0]. $session_data = unserialize($tmp[0]); if (!is_array($session_data)) { // something went wrong, initialize to empty array $session_data = array(); } }