Zend_Serializer provides an adapter based interface to simply generate storable representation of php types by different facilities, and recover.

$serializer = Zend_Serializer::factory('PhpSerialize');
// Now $serializer is an instance of Zend_Serializer_Adapter_AdapterInterface,
// specifically Zend_Serializer_Adapter_PhpSerialize

try {
    $serialized = $serializer->serialize($data);
    // now $serialized is a string

    $unserialized = $serializer->unserialize($serialized);
    // now $data == $unserialized
} catch (Zend_Serializer_Exception $e) {
    echo $e;
}

The method serialize generates a storable string. To regenerate this serialized data you can simply call the method unserialize.

Any time an error is encountered serializing or unserializing, Zend_Serializer will throw a Zend_Serializer_Exception.

To configure a given serializer adapter, you can optionally add an array or an instance of Zend_Config to the factory or to the un-/serialize methods:

$serializer = Zend_Serializer::factory('Wddx', array(
    'comment' => 'serialized by Zend_Serializer',
));

try {
    $serialized = $serializer->serialize($data, array('comment' => 'change comment'));
    $unserialized = $serializer->unserialize($serialized, array(/* options for unserialize */));
} catch (Zend_Serializer_Exception $e) {
    echo $e;
}

Options passed to the factory are valid for the instantiated object. You can change these options using the setOption(s) method. To change one or more options only for a single call, pass them as the second argument to either the serialize or unserialize method.

Zend_Serializer::setDefaultAdapter('PhpSerialize', $options);
// or
$serializer = Zend_Serializer::factory('PhpSerialize', $options);
Zend_Serializer::setDefaultAdapter($serializer);

try {
    $serialized   = Zend_Serializer::serialize($data, $options);
    $unserialized = Zend_Serializer::unserialize($serialized, $options);
} catch (Zend_Serializer_Exception $e) {
    echo $e;
}