Serializes data, if needed.

$data string|array|object Required

Data that might be serialized.

mixed A scalar data.

• Data might need to be serialized to allow it to be successfully stored and retrieved from a database in a form that PHP can understand.
• Confusingly, strings that contain already serialized values are serialized again, resulting in a nested serialization. Other strings are unmodified.
• A possible solution to prevent nested serialization is to check if a variable is serialized using is_serialized()
  

  if( !is_serialized( $data ) ) {
      $data = maybe_serialize($data);
  }

File: wp-includes/functions.php. View all references

function maybe_serialize( $data ) {
	if ( is_array( $data ) || is_object( $data ) ) {
		return serialize( $data );
	}

	/*
	 * Double serialization is required for backward compatibility.
	 * See https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12930
	 * Also the world will end. See WP 3.6.1.
	 */
	if ( is_serialized( $data, false ) ) {
		return serialize( $data );
	}

	return $data;
}