Preferred method to store PHP arrays (json_encode vs serialize)

Question

I need to store a multi-dimensional associative array of data in a flat file for caching purposes. I might occasionally come across the need to convert it to JSON for use in

Answer 1

Seems like serialize is the one I'm going to use for 2 reasons:

• Someone pointed out that unserialize is faster than json_decode and a 'read' case sounds more probable than a 'write' case.

• I've had trouble with json_encode when having strings with invalid UTF-8 characters. When that happens the string ends up being empty causing loss of information.