Question

I need to be able to temporarily store a complete PHP object (containing some data and methods) somewhere… we use MySQL already but I’m open to other solutions if they work better.

Essentially, I can’t use serialize because we lose the methods and I’d rather not save the data, and then create a new instance of the object every time I want to use it.

What’s the best way for storing a complete php object for later use (needs to be saved to memory, using session not ok if user disconnects).

Answer 1

You can use serialize, but you need to include the class file before restoring/unserializing the instance you created and saved. That will restore everything, including methods. You can’t save everything because PHP doesn’t save a copy of everything in the instance.

Basically, you need to include the underlying code, then restore/unserialize. The instance will contain any data changes that had been made prior to serializing/saving.