Edit report at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=36424&edit=1
ID: 36424 User updated by: mastabog at hotmail dot com Reported by: mastabog at hotmail dot com Summary: Keeping reference info through recursive calls to serialize() Status: Assigned Type: Feature/Change Request Package: Unknown/Other Function Operating System: * PHP Version: 5.2.14-dev Assigned To: mike New Comment: I still don't understand why this is not seen as a bug. My example shows that without "implements Serializable" object references are honoured (as expected) while with "implements Serializable" object references are broken (which is unexpected). Seeing you classified this as "feature request" makes me think that breaking object references was actually intended behaviour or that there is a way to maintain object references when implementing Serializable. Can you then please provide the body of the serialize() and unserialize() methods in class A in the example below that will maintain object references as expected, i.e. $new_oC->A === $new_oC->B->A? class A implements Serializable { public function serialize () { [...] } function unserialize($serialized) { [...] } } class B extends A { public $A; } class C extends A { public $A; public $B; } $oC = new C(); $oC->A = new A(); $oC->B = new B(); $oC->B->A = $oC->A; echo $oC->A === $oC->B->A ? "yes" : "no", "\n"; $ser = serialize($oC); $new_oC = unserialize($ser); echo $new_oC->A === $new_oC->B->A ? "yes" : "no", "\n"; Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2010-05-21 11:19:54] m...@php.net Reclassified as Change Request. JFYI: http://news.php.net/php.internals/48369 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2010-05-20 23:21:02] mastabog at hotmail dot com Why has the status of this been changed to "bogus"? Are we to understand that the devs regard this as being intended behaviour, i.e. the Serializable interface breaks object references of objects implementing it? The initial reproduce code shows that what was an object reference before is no longer a reference after unserialization ... this is a bug. There may be other (better) reproduce codes but the bug is still there. Why not try and fix it? Well, I tried but I think I will give up ... it's been 4+ years! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2010-05-20 18:31:13] mastabog at hotmail dot com If you remove "implements Serializable" then it works as expected and the reproduce code shows that. Revealing the bug was what my report was about. It's a bug. It surprises me that nobody wants to fix it after more than 4 years ... apparently it's just me that considers this bug to be important which is why I still avoid using the Serializable interface altogether. It's unreliable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2010-05-20 16:09:10] m...@php.net The reproduce code is wrong. Your code serializes everything on it's own, as you can see if you replace return $serialized; with $serialized = serialize($serialized); printf("serialized %s as '%s'\n", get_class($this), $serialized); return $serialized; Output: yes serialized A as 'a:0:{}' serialized A as 'a:0:{}' serialized B as 'a:1:{s:1:"A";C:1:"A":6:{a:0:{}}}' serialized C as 'a:2:{s:1:"A";C:1:"A":6:{a:0:{}}s:1:"B";C:1:"B":32:{a:1:{s:1:"A";C:1:"A":6:{a:0:{}}}}}' no ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2010-03-02 00:31:36] mastabog at hotmail dot com Hi, I tested with the latest Linux source snapshot (php5.2-201003011530) and the bug is still there. I also tested the recently released 5.2.13 release and got the same result. Both Linux and Windows. Did you run the reproduce code from the first post above and got the expected result? The bug is definitely there in the snapshot I tested. I've been avoiding the Serializable interface ever since it got introduced due to this nasty bug. Could it please be fixed? It's growing old and strong :) Cheers ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The remainder of the comments for this report are too long. To view the rest of the comments, please view the bug report online at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=36424 -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=36424&edit=1