How does actually this pack() function in PHP work? I'm thinking about creating a caching mechanism (DB based), to store some big objects (or arrays) collected during an application cycle lifetime. That's not important though: the PHP serialize/unserialize method has some flaws in it, meaning that for example I serialize a \n character, the resulting string will not be unserializable. So, then I thought I could pack my data in a binary form (using pack), then store it into the database. This is part of a larger test, in which the objective is to "compile" PHP code to binary code and run that instead of the interpreted PHP code.

So, where could I find some good info about pack? The info the php.net website offers is very limitative... :(

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