Name

serialize , deserialize — convert any heterogeneous array or tree of arrays into a binary string and back

Synopsis

binary string serialize ( in tree any );
binary string deserialize ( in str varchar );

Description

These functions will convert any heterogeneous array or tree of arrays into a binary string and back. The format is platform independent.

deserialize (serialize (x))

is the identity function.

These functions are useful for persisting heterogeneous arrays.

[Note] Note:

The serialization can be stored as a blob, so that there is no practical length limit. The string length is however limited to 16 MB.