#7. Lukasz on 27 June 2008

You have race conditions in your code
for the unserialize. That is you have return statement on multiple lines which sometimes but not always causes the an error

Example:
######################
... [more] var deserializedArray = unserialize(serializedObject);

var x = deserializedArray['someFiled'];

######################

Sometimes if I want to use the field ['someField'] of the deserializedArray immediately on the next line of code after calling the function unserialize I get the error saying that deserializedArray['someFiled'] has no properites. This is caused beacuse YOU HAVE RETUNED FROM THE FUNCTION BEFORE YOU HAVE FINISHED DESERIALIZING ALL THE FIELDS, AND THE CODE CONTINUES. I guess it is the way you used recursion that is the problem.

The actual output from Firebug:
######################
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserialize() finished ::
unserializeResp has no properties
[Break on this error] var anonsArr = unserializeResp['anons_media']
######################

#6. Kevin on 28 April 2008

@ alberto: Of course there are many ways to transport data between server- and clientside. Which way is better depends on your situation. In this project however it's all about mimicking PHP functionality. And serialize & unserialize are two functions that do just that, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is faster then generating & parsing XML. Which is a pretty heavy format actually. Best in most cases would probably be JSON though. Because since PHP5, PHP can

$json = json_encode($array);

And JavaScript can interpret JSON natively:

for ( item in json ) {
}

JSON will also produce the smallest output compared to XML & serialized arrays. For safe transportation you may want to additionally:

base = base64_encode(json_encode($data));

data = base64_decode(base);

base64 functions have also been ported in this project.

#5. alberto on 27 April 2008

wouldn't it be better just to transform the php object data to an XML object that is easy to hang by Javascript?
Anybody interested in this way email me albertomelchor@hotmail.com

#4. Kevin on 03 April 2008

@ Devin: Logically you're right but my guess is that Arpad Ray had performance on his mind when writing it like that.

It's a recursive function so every bit of performance tweaking will help.

I think the first check may be less CPU intensive than the second one. Though the second one probably needs to be in place for arrays and other cases, it is skipped if the first condition is true, thus saving you a calculation.
... [more]
If you have other thoughts on that please let me know.

#3. Devin on 03 April 2008

You have:

if (inp == "" || inp.length < 2) {

Isn't the string length of "" < 2 anyway? How about:

if (inp.length < 2) {

#2. Kevin on 20 March 2008

@ Pedro Tainha: Awesome! Thanks for the kind words and improved code!

#1. Pedro Tainha on 20 March 2008

Hello!!! I was searching for this function in javascript a long time ago and happy to finally fond it. But when I tryed didn´t work with me. I sent an email for the author but he didn´t reply (probably he had no time - no problem), so i had to learn the code and find the problems. I´m glad because i solved my problem and at the same time, because i never tryed to contribute with something, this was inspiring and i can see that probably anyone can do it as well - Don´t be shy, try it!!! (please don´t look at the language errors, I´m from Portugal and I don´t write with much frequency) Now let´s get with the real stuff, that in reality isn´t so much. the lines that were changed and comented with: '//changed...' 1. In the array case, the code was only prepared for the number of fields less then 10, now suports any number of fields 2. In the boolean case, the semicolon afther the "0" or "1" boolean variables wasn´t cuted. Thanks very much to Arpad Ray, you did a great job. This function is very useful for me!!! And will be for others, i will try to put a great toturial about this function and php using AJAX. I prefer this instead Json to receive data from php. The code is above:

function unserialize ( inp ) {
    // http://kevin.vanzonneveld.net
    // +   original by: Arpad Ray (mailto:arpad@php.net)
    // *     example 1: unserialize();
    // *     returns 1: ['Kevin', 'van', 'Zonneveld']
  //
   //*******************************************************************************
  //
  // *   Reviewed at: 19/03/2008
  // +            by: Pedro Tainha (email@pedrotainha.com or pedrotainha@gmail.com)
  //
  // Notes:
  //  Fixed bugs for the cases: 'b'(boolean) and 'a'(array)
  //
  //*******************************************************************************
  
  
    error = 0;
    if (inp == "" || inp.length < 2) {
        errormsg = "input is too short";
        return;
    }
    var val, kret, vret, cval;
    var type = inp.charAt(0);
    var cont = inp.substring(2);
    var size = 0, divpos = 0, endcont = 0, rest = "", next = "";
 
    switch (type) {
    case "N": // null
        if (inp.charAt(1) != ";") {
            errormsg = "missing ; for null";
        }
        // leave val undefined
        rest = cont;
        break;
    case "b": // boolean
        if (!/[01];/.test(cont.substring(0,2))) {
            errormsg = "value not 0 or 1, or missing ; for boolean";
        }
        val = (cont.charAt(0) == "1");
        rest = cont.substring(2);  //changed...
        break;
    case "s": // string
        val = "";
        divpos = cont.indexOf(":");
        if (divpos == -1) {
            errormsg = "missing : for string";
            break;
        }
        size = parseInt(cont.substring(0, divpos));
        if (size == 0) {
            if (cont.length - divpos < 4) {
                errormsg = "string is too short";
                break;
            }
            rest = cont.substring(divpos + 4);
            break;
        }
        if ((cont.length - divpos - size) < 4) {
            errormsg = "string is too short";
            break;
        }
        if (cont.substring(divpos + 2 + size, divpos + 4 + size) != "\";") {
            errormsg = "string is too long, or missing \";";
        }
        val = cont.substring(divpos + 2, divpos + 2 + size);
        rest = cont.substring(divpos + 4 + size);
        break;
    case "i": // integer
    case "d": // float
  
        var dotfound = 0;
        for (var t = 0; t < cont.length; t++) {
            cval = cont.charAt(t);
            if (isNaN(parseInt(cval)) && !(type == "d" && cval == "." && !dotfound++)) {
                endcont = t;
                break;
            }
        }
        if (!endcont || cont.charAt(endcont) != ";") {
            errormsg = "missing or invalid value, or missing ; for int/float";
        }
        val = cont.substring(0, endcont);
        val = (type == "i" ? parseInt(val) : parseFloat(val));
        rest = cont.substring(endcont + 1);
        break;
    case "a": // array
        if (cont.length < 4) {
            errormsg = "array is too short";
            return;
        }
        divpos = cont.indexOf(":", 1);
  
        if (divpos == -1) {
            errormsg = "missing : for array";
            return;
        }
        size = parseInt(cont.substring(1*divpos, 0));  //changed...
  
        cont = cont.substring(divpos + 2);
        val = new Array();
        if (cont.length < 1) {
            errormsg = "array is too short";
            return;
        }
        for (var i = 0; i + 1 < size * 2; i += 2) {
      
      
            kret = unserialize(cont, 1);
      
            if (error || kret[0] == undefined || kret[1] == "") {
                errormsg = "missing or invalid key, or missing value for array";
                return;
            }
      
            vret = unserialize(kret[1], 1);
    
            if (error) {
                errormsg = "invalid value for array";
                return;
            }
            val[kret[0]] = vret[0];
            cont = vret[1];
        }
    
        if (cont.charAt(0) != "}") {
            errormsg = "missing ending }, or too many values for array";
            return;
        }
    
        rest = cont.substring(1);
        break;
    case "O": // object
        divpos = cont.indexOf(":");
        if (divpos == -1) {
            errormsg = "missing : for object";
            return;
        }
        size = parseInt(cont.substring(0, divpos));