Serialization

Using (un-)serialize() on a collection is not a supported use-case and may break when changes on the collection's internals happen in the future. If a collection needs to be serialized, use toArray() and reconstruct the collection manually.

1 $collection = new ArrayCollection([1, 2, 3]);
$serialized = serialize($collection->toArray());
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A reconstruction is also necessary when the collection contains objects with infinite recursion of dependencies like in this json_serialize() example:

1 $foo = new Foo();
$bar = new Bar();

$foo->setBar($bar);
$bar->setFoo($foo);

$collection = new ArrayCollection([$foo]);
$json       = json_serialize($collection->toArray()); // recursion detected
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Serializer libraries can be used to create the serialization-output to prevent errors.

1	$collection = new ArrayCollection([1, 2, 3]); $serialized = serialize($collection->toArray());
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1	$foo = new Foo(); $bar = new Bar(); $foo->setBar($bar); $bar->setFoo($foo); $collection = new ArrayCollection([$foo]); $json = json_serialize($collection->toArray()); // recursion detected
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Maintained

Unmaintained

Serialization