PHP Serialize object tree

Question

I have an object tree like the following, which I need to serialize and store on the filesystem. I need the full hierarchy with all class properties and later I will unseria

Answer 1

I have implemented serialize() and unserialize() in every affected class like this:

        public function serialize() {

            $res = array();

            $reflect = new \ReflectionClass(__CLASS__);
            $propList = $reflect->getProperties();

            foreach($propList as $prop) {
                    if ($prop->class != __CLASS__) {
                            continue; // visible properties of base clases
                    }

                    $name = $prop->name;
                    $res[$name . ":" . __CLASS__] = serialize($this->$name);
            }

            if (method_exists(get_parent_class(__CLASS__), "serialize")) {
                    $base = unserialize(parent::serialize());
                    $res = array_merge($res, $base);
            }

            return serialize($res);
    }

    public function unserialize($data) {

            $values = unserialize($data);
            foreach ($values as $key => $value) {

                    // key contains propertyName:className
                    $prop = explode(":", $key);
                    if ($prop[1] != __CLASS__) {
                            continue;
                    }

                    $this->$prop[0] = unserialize($value);
            }

            // call base class
            if (method_exists(get_parent_class(__CLASS__), "unserialize")) {
                    parent::unserialize($data);
            }
    }

Maybe there is a solution to add this functionality to a base class to prevent code copies. It should work with simple properties, arrays and objects also for large object trees with multiple levels of parent classes.