<?php

/**

* Igbinary is a drop in replacement for the standard php serializer.

* Instead of time and space consuming textual presentation, igbinary stores php data

* structures in a compact binary form. Savings are significant when using

* memcached or similar memory based storages for serialized data.

*

* But where does the name "igbinary" come from? There was once a similar project

* called fbinary but it has disappeared from the Internet. Its architecture

* wasn't very clean either. IG is short name for a finnish social networking site

* {@link http://irc-galleria.net/ IRC-Galleria}.

*

* Storing complex php data structures like arrays of associative arrays in

* serialized form is not very space efficient. Igbinary uses two strategies to

* to minimize size of the serialized form.

*

* Strings are stored only once by using a hash table. Arrays of associate arrays

* with very verbose keys are stored very compactly.

*

* Numerical values are stored in the smallest primitive data type available.

* 123 = int8_t,

* 1234 = int16_t,

* 123456 = int32_t

* ... and so on.

*

* This file is igbinary phpdoc documentation stub.

*

* @author Oleg Grenrus <oleg.grenrus@dynamoid.com>

* @version 1.0.0

* @package igbinary

*/

/** Generates a storable representation of a value.

* This is useful for storing or passing PHP values around without losing their type and structure.

* To make the serialized string into a PHP value again, use {@link igbinary_unserialize}.

*

* igbinary_serialize() handles all types, except the resource-type.

* You can even serialize() arrays that contain references to itself.

* Circular references inside the array/object you are serialize()ing will also be stored.

*

* If object implements {@link http://www.php.net/~helly/php/ext/spl/interfaceSerializable.html Serializable} -interface,

* PHP will call the member function serialize to get serialized representation of object.

*

* When serializing objects, PHP will attempt to call the member function __sleep prior to serialization.

* This is to allow the object to do any last minute clean-up, etc. prior to being serialized.

* Likewise, when the object is restored using unserialize() the __wakeup member function is called.

*

* @param mixed $value The value to be serialized.

* @return string Returns a string containing a byte-stream representation of value that can be stored anywhere.

* @link http://www.php.net/serialize PHP default serialize

*/

function igbinary_serialize($value);

/** Creates a PHP value from a stored representation.

* igbinary_unserialize() takes a single serialized variable and converts it back into a PHP value.

*

* If the variable being unserialized is an object, after successfully reconstructing the object

* PHP will automatically attempt to call the __wakeup() member function (if it exists).

* In case the passed string is not unserializeable, NULL is returned and E_WARNING is issued.

*

* @param string $str The serialized string.

* @return mixed The converted value is returned, and can be a boolean, integer, float, string, array or object.

* @link http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.unserialize.php PHP default unserialize

* @link http://www.php.net/~helly/php/ext/spl/interfaceSerializable.html Serializable

*/

function igbinary_unserialize($str);

?>