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Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2024 14:09:53 -0500
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To: =?UTF-8?Q?Micha=C5=82_Marcin_Brzuchalski?= <michal.brzuchalski@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)

Hi Micha=C5=82,

Thursday, February 8, 2024, 2:58:52 AM, you wrote:

>You inspired me to play with serialization format to spot even more
>unnecessary chars https://3v4l.org/DLh1U
>From my PoV there are more candidates to reduce and still keep the safety,
>for eg:
>removing leading ':' before array/object and trailing ';' inside brackets,
>you reduce by 2 bytes
>
>a:4:{i:0;i:123;i:1;b:1;i:2;d:1.1;i:3;s:3:"baz";}
>
>Could be simply
>
>a:4{i:0;i:123;i:1;b:1;i:2;d:1.1;i:3;s:3:baz}
>
>This example saves 4 bytes: double-quotes, one ; and :
>
>If you go further all types that require size/length also don't need extra
>double-colon meaning:
>a:4 could become a4
>s:3 could become s3
>
>The same could apply to O: and E:
>
>O3:Foo:5{s4:date;O17:DateTimeImmutable:3{s4:date;s26:2024-02-08
>08:41:10.009742;s13:timezone_type;i:3;s8:timezone;s16:Europe/Amsterdam}s6:=
*foo;s11:Foo
>bar
>baz;s8:Foobar;i:123456789;s3:tbl;a4{i:0;i:123;i:1;b:1;i:2;d:1.1;i:3;s3:baz=
}s8:*color;E12:Color:Yellow}
>
>This is still readable by humans and keep the size/length in all places
>where needed.

Amazing. To my eyes it's more readable too.

Here's another one: leading numeral *implies* Integer 'i' (so only
'd', 'b' and 's<len>' are necessary). Or maybe that goes too far.


>Interestingly when an array is serialized as object property it is not
>followed by ; in field list https://3v4l.org/4p6ve
>
>O:3:"Foo":2:{s:3:"foo";a:3:{i:0;i:1;i:1;i:2;i:2;i:3;}s:3:"bar";s:3:"baz";}
>
>Missing ; between }s was a surprise to me.

Yeah, that almost seems like a bug that unserialize() tolerates.

=E2=80=94 S.