Short answer: DO NOT DO IT. Longer answer:....I hate seeing serialized PHP objects within a database.

Some of his reasons include:

• It's difficult to index/search - you'll probably need to use a regexp.
• PHP Specific - good luck doing much with the data in a.n.other language
• If the objects are large, you're likely to have a text or a blob field - this will suck from a performance point of view (at least in MySQL)
• Why bother storing serialized objects in a database - surely to the filesystem would be better?

Several opinions are expressed in the comments including some that agree with David and some that still defend the idea.

Andrew van der Stock has written a strong criticism of PHP's insecurity. Andrew is a seasoned security expert and a major contributor to OWASP, and he states:

"After writing PHP forum software for three years now, I've come to the conclusion that it is basically impossible for normal programmers to write secure PHP code. It takes far too much effort."

He continues, citing specific areas where he thinks PHP is weak and asserting that "PHP must now mature and take on a proper security architecture."

Chris also mentions that some of the reasons Andrew mentions include register_globals, magic_quotes_gpc, and safe_mode - all due to be removed in the latest PHP version (6). Also, be sure to check out the comments on the post for a good bit more information and discussion...]]> Tue, 24 Jan 2006 06:34:00 -0600