Serializable is just a “marker interface” for a given class. But that class must adhere to certain rules: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/api/java/io/Serializable.html To allow subtypes of non-serializable classes to be serialized, the subtype may assume responsibility for saving and restoring the state of the supertype’s public, protected, and (if accessible) package fields. The subtype may assume this responsibility … Read more
pickle is for serializing some object (or objects) as a single bytestream in a file. shelve builds on top of pickle and implements a serialization dictionary where objects are pickled, but associated with a key (some string), so you can load your shelved data file and access your pickled objects via keys. This could be … Read more
In the simplest cases type hinting should work: $json = json_encode( (array)$object );
Serialization is the conversion of an object to a series of bytes, so that the object can be easily saved to persistent storage or streamed across a communication link. The byte stream can then be deserialized – converted into a replica of the original object.