What kind of serialization uses PHP function session_set_save_handler's write function?

Question

I make use of session_set_save_handler(). It works fine. However, sometimes I need to alter user's session data. I simply expected that the session data passed to write function are internally created like this:

serialize($_SESSION);

But they are not. They have this slightly different format than simple PHP serialized data:

user|a:24:{s:2:"id";s:2:"12";s:5:"email";s:19:...CUT...;}last_activity_time|i:1310535031;logged_everywhere|b:1;

Anybody knows what kind of serialization is internally used for serializing $_SESSION data for write function in session_set_save_handler() ? Or even better, if there is some unserialize and serialize function I can use to work with this data ?

Answer 1

Please take a look at the PHP-Dokumentation for session_decode and session_encode. You will find complete samples for unserializing and serializing session strings in the comments.