Newbie question: un/serialize case for PHP Objects

[Stuart Moffatt]

In php.js, serialize has a code block where the case is 'object', but
has no case for 'o' (PHP object).
Are there plans to support serialization of PHP objects to JS
prototypes (and vice-versa)?

For instance, I'd like to be able to do this:

--- php ---
class Person
{
private name
private child

... setters and getters ...
}
$person = new Person()
$person->setName("Bob Smith")
$child = new Person()
$child->setName("Bobby Smith, Jr")
$person->setChild($child)

$serialized_person = serialize($person)
-- php --

... pass $serialized_person to client via http ...

-- js --
... include serialize.js from php.js ...
var serialized_person = '<?php echo $serialized_person ?>';
// and unserialize in js
var person = unserialize(serialized_person)
document.write('person name: ' + person.getName())
document.write('child name: ' + person.getChild().getName())
-- js --

Are people already doing it this way? Any help / hints would be good.

Thanks,
Stuart

[Brett Zamir]

I think what you want is json_encode() and json_decode(), available in
php.js as well as PHP... JSON is just a subset of JavaScript to
represent serialized data. I don't know if there are any differences
between what information is preserved in serialize() and in
json_encode(), but I think json_encode() should also preserve the object
information...

Brett

[Kevin van Zonneveld]

But you can't transfer a ->getName() php method, and expect it to work in js.

--
Met vriendelijke groet / Kind regards,

Kevin van Zonneveld
http://kevin.vanzonneveld.net

http://twitter.com/kvz

[Stuart Moffatt]

@Brett - yes, I am aware of the json en/decode utilities, but when I unserialize I don't want JSON objects -- I want my javascript prototypes on the client-side and my PHP classes on the server-side. However, the unserialize method in php.js does not have a  case for the PHP-serialized type of 'O' (meaning PHP object). There is another library that demonstrates this is possible to do with objects (PHP_Unserialize), so my question was why this is not implemented in php.js

@Kevin With reflection in PHP I can generate static JS prototypes so that I maintain only one codebase (in PHP) for my domain model. I am pretty sure that means I won't have to transfer my setter/getter functions along with the serialized object, so long as I can 'cast' my unserialized data into a my own prototype (working on how to do this).

I am currently working on a new case for unserialize in php.js that will properly parse the serialized object string and let the other cases (i,b,d,n,s,a) do the heavy lifting for object properties. 

I was hoping that someone more familiar with php.js has already implemented this, or has a conventional workaround for passing objects rather than other data structures.

Stuart

[Kevin van Zonneveld]

Hey Stuart,

I'd be interested to see some code samples of what you are trying to achieve.
Let me know how it goes in any case!