accessing wordpress serialized data outside wp

Question

I've never worked with serialized data... I need a little help with how to load "text" widgets title and content in php script outside wordpress...

my script just connects to database (including wp-config and using its values). secont thing is to load wp_options entries with option name sidebars_widgets and widget_text.

Here is where I do not know how to continue - data is serialized (example follows) and I don't know, how to process it in php...

widget_text content:
a:7:{
i:2;a:3:{s:5:"title";s:11:"lorem ipsum";s:4:"text";s:17:"...lorem ipsum...";s:6:"filter";b:1;}
i:3;a:3:{s:5:"title";s:0:"";s:4:"text";s:3:"...";s:6:"filter";b:0;}
i:4;a:3:{s:5:"title";s:0:"";s:4:"text";s:3:"...";s:6:"filter";b:0;}
i:5;a:3:{s:5:"title";s:0:"";s:4:"text";s:3;"...";s:6:"filter";b:0;}
i:6;a:3:{s:5:"title";s:7:"1234567";s:4:"text";s:0:"";s:6:"filter";b:0;}
i:7;a:3:{s:5:"title";s:7:"1234567";s:4:"text";s:0:"";s:6:"filter";b:0;}
s:12:"_multiwidget";i:1;}

Thanks for help

Answer 1

Use PHP's unserialize function:

<?php
$data = 'a:2:{i:0;s:12:"Sample array";i:1;a:2:{i:0;s:5:"Apple";i:1;s:6:"Orange";}}';
$unserialized = unserialize($data);

echo '<pre>';
print_r($unserialized);
echo '</pre>';
?>

Result:

Array
(
    [0] => Sample array
    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => Apple
            [1] => Orange
        )
)

Got the sample data over at unserialize.com, a handy little site if you want to quickly check what's inside that serialized string.