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

Use serialize and unserialize

// storing
$file = '/tmp/out.data';
file_put_contents($file, serialize($mydata)); // $mydata is the response from your remote API

// retreiving
$var = unserialize(file_get_contents($file));

Or another, hacky way:

var_export() does exactly what you want, it will take any kind of variable, and store it in a representation that the PHP parser can read back. You can combine it with file_put_contents to store it on disk, and use file_get_contents and eval to read it back.

// storing
$file = '/tmp/out.php';
file_put_contents($file, var_export($var, true));

// retrieving
eval('$myvar = ' . file_get_contents($file) . ';');