From time to time previously serialized array will get broken. The most common problem occurs when string length is invalid so instead of
a:2:{i:758;s:4:"test";i:759;s:4:"test";}
you have
a:2:{i:758;s:4:"test";i:759;s:9:"test";}
becouse someone edited something directly in db, in this case to make php unserialize() function to work again, just do this magic:
[php]
$data = html_entity_decode($data, ENT_QUOTES, ‘UTF-8’);
$data = preg_replace(‘!s:(\d+):"(.*?)";!e’, "’s:’.strlen(‘$2′).’:\"$2\";’", $data );
$data = unserialize($data);
[/php]
and you will get all strings lenths to be fixed again.
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘;’, expecting T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM
A more secure solution would be to use preg_replace_callback:
$data = preg_replace_callback( '/s:(\d+):"(.*?)";/', function ($m){ $len = strlen($m[2]); $data = $m[2]; return "s:$len:\"$data\";"; }, $data );