CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpmysqldeserializationblob
user320691
user320691

Reputation: 185

Unserializing PHP array not working

I have the following serialized array stored in a MySQL longblob data field:

a:1:{s:10:"attributes";a:1:{s:13:"Ticket Holder";a:1:{i:0;s:8:"Joe Blow";}}}

In PHP, when I query the field, unserialize it, and print it out, the following empty array is printed:

Array
(
)

This is the table create statement:

CREATE TABLE `order` (
  `state` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET ascii DEFAULT NULL,
  `data` longblob,
  `created` int(11) DEFAULT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4;

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2001

Answers (3)

user320691
user320691

Reputation: 185

Converting the column to UTF8 in the SELECT statement and then unserializing it.

CONVERT (data USING utf8)

I'm not sure why this is necessary. I'm guessing it has something to do with the utf8mb4_general_ci collation.

Thank you for all of your help guys!

Upvotes: 0

William Perron
William Perron

Reputation: 1398

Use base64_encode

The core problem comes from the binary encoding done by the database and the extra bytes it adds to the value stored. This "corrupts" the data that is being fetched from the database and causes unserialize to fail. To help mitigate this problem, you can use base64_encode and base64_decode which will allow you to insert and extract the data painlessly.

// data is encoded before insert
$dataToInsert = base64_encode(serialize($myArray));

// decode the data before unserializing it
$dataToRead = unserialize(base64_decode($longblob));

Upvotes: 0

Alireza Hoseinzadeh
Alireza Hoseinzadeh

Reputation: 606

Your serialized data is invalid. You must never mainpulate serialized data manually.

Strings are serialized as:

s:<i>:"<s>";

where <i> is an integer representing the string length of <s>, and <s> is the string value.

So in this case valid data is : 

a:1:{s:10:"attributes";a:1:{s:13:"Ticket Holder";a:1:{i:0;s:8:"Joe Blow";}}}

Joe Blow string length is 8 but in your serialized strings is defined 13.

See : Structure of a Serialized PHP string

Upvotes: 1

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