How do I store an array in a file to access as an array later with PHP?

Question

I just want to quickly store an array which I get from a remote API, so that i can mess around with it on a local host.

So:

1. I currently have an array.<

Answer 1

The best way to do this is JSON serializing. It is human readable and you'll get better performance (file is smaller and faster to load/save). The code is very easy. Just two functions

• json_encode
• json_decode

Example code:

$arr1 = array ('a'=>1,'b'=>2,'c'=>3,'d'=>4,'e'=>5);
file_put_contents("array.json",json_encode($arr1));
# array.json => {"a":1,"b":2,"c":3,"d":4,"e":5}
$arr2 = json_decode(file_get_contents('array.json'), true);
$arr1 === $arr2 # => true

You can write your own store_array and restore_array functions easily with this example.

For speed comparison see benchmark originally from Preferred method to store PHP arrays (json_encode vs serialize).