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Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2024 11:34:55 -0500
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To: Ilija Tovilo <tovilo.ilija@gmail.com>
Cc: PHP Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Why are serialized strings wrapped in double quotes? (s:<len>:"<string>")
From: figureonecpr@gmail.com (Sanford Whiteman)

> I don't have the historical context, but I'm assuming that's it. PHPs
> serialization format is not efficient, and I don't think that was ever
> the primary focus.

Thanks Ilija. That'll have to suffice unless someone remembers a specific
decision (searching all the old Internals posts nothing came up). Most of m=
y
readers are pretty junior but I hate to say something that conflicts with
their intuition.

=E2=80=94 S.

On Wed, Feb 7, 2024 at 7:28=E2=80=AFAM Ilija Tovilo <tovilo.ilija@gmail.com=
> wrote:
>
> Hi Sandy
>
> On Tue, Feb 6, 2024 at 9:19=E2=80=AFPM Sanford Whiteman <figureonecpr@gma=
il.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'd like a little background on something we've long accepted: why
> > does the serialization format need double quotes around a string, even
> > though the byte length is explicit?
> >
> > Example:
> >
> >   s:5:"hello";
> >
> > All else being equal I would think we could have just
> >
> >   s:5:hello;
> >
> > Was this just to make strings look more 'stringy', even though the
> > format isn't meant to be human-readable?
>
> I don't have the historical context, but I'm assuming that's it. PHPs
> serialization format is not efficient, and I don't think that was ever
> the primary focus. If you need something more efficient, you can try
> https://github.com/igbinary/igbinary which is aimed to be a drop-in
> replacement.
>
> Ilija
>
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