Unserialize in Java a serialized php object

Question

Does anyone know if it is possible, actually if it has been done, to serialize an object in php and unserialize it in Java (java-php communication). Maybe an adapter will be

Answer 1

Serializing an object in PHP will dump the object properties. The resulting string isn't terribly complicated.

echo serialize(
    array(1, null, "mystring", array("key"=>"value"))
);

Results in:

a:4:{i:0;i:1;i:1;N;i:2;s:8:"mystring";i:3;a:1:{s:3:"key";s:5:"value";}}

The string identifies datatypes, array lengths, array indexes and values, string lengths... Wouldn't take too much effort to reverse-engineer it and come up with your own parser, I think.