Sunday, December 6, 2009

Serialize Javascript to PHP

When interacting Javascript with PHP, you might need to serialise any Javascript data type into the PHP serialized format, where it can be unserialized using PHP. The following function will serialize any Javascript data.
function serialize(mixed_value) {
    var _getType = function(inp) {
        var type = typeof inp, match;
        var key;
        if (type == 'object' && !inp) {
            return 'null';
        }
        if (type == "object") {
            if (!inp.constructor) {
                return 'object';
            }
            var cons = inp.constructor.toString();
            match = cons.match(/(\w+)\(/);
            if (match) {
                cons = match[1].toLowerCase();
            }
            var types = ["boolean", "number", "string", "array"];
            for (key in types) {
                if (cons == types[key]) {
                    type = types[key];
                    break;
                }
            }
        }
        return type;
    };
    var type = _getType(mixed_value);
    var val, ktype = '';

    switch (type) {
        case "function":
            val = "";
            break;
        case "null":
        case "undefined":
            val = "N";
            break;
        case "boolean":
            val = "b:" + (mixed_value ? "1" : "0");
            break;
        case "number":
            val = (Math.round(mixed_value) == mixed_value ? "i" : "d") + ":" + mixed_value;
            break;
        case "string":
            val = "s:" + mixed_value.length + ":\"" + mixed_value + "\"";
            break;
        case "array":
        case "object":
            val = "a";
            var count = 0;
            var vals = "";
            var okey;
            var key;
            for (key in mixed_value) {
                ktype = _getType(mixed_value[key]);
                if (ktype == "function") {
                    continue;
                }

                okey = (key.match(/^[0-9]+$/) ? parseInt(key, 10) : key);
                vals += serialize(okey) +
                        serialize(mixed_value[key]);
                count++;
            }
            val += ":" + count + ":{" + vals + "}";
            break;
    }
    if (type != "object" && type != "array") {
        val += ";";
    }
    return val;
}
The code fragment below will do the serializing in Javascript and the later code will unserialize it in PHP.
var array = ["ruchira", "wageesha"];
//serialize value
var serialize_array = serialize(array);
$array = unserialize($_POST['array']);

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