How to delete a specific subarray from an array that has been serialized?

2 comments

1. You should not do this with regular expressions. These are serialized objects and if you edit anything in them manually which changes length of any contained string, you have to change the length parameter as well.

   Instead you should unserialise data by doing $data = unserialize($data); make changes and then serialise it again with $data = serialize($data);.

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2. It appears that your posted serialized string is technically invalid due to the addition of slashes on your single quotes. Maybe this is a posting inaccuracy cause by copying the value between the outer single quotes of var_export() or something else. Regardless of the cause, I’ll strip the slashes from the input (this could be done with a number of different functions) so that the data can be unserialized.

   After unserialize() converts the data into an array, you can use unset() to remove the unwanted thumbnail subarray.

   With the modifications complete, you can simply re-serialize the data with no risk of data corruption.

   Code: (Demo)

   $string = <<<STRING
   a:6:{s:5:"width";s:4:"3000";s:6:"height";s:4:"2100";s:14:"hwstring_small";s:23:"height='89' width='128'";s:4:"file";s:25:"2012/02/sopa_nicearma.jpg";s:5:"sizes";a:3:{s:9:"thumbnail";a:3:{s:4:"file";s:23:"sopa_nicearma-15x10.jpg";s:5:"width";s:2:"15";s:6:"height";s:2:"10";}s:6:"medium";a:3:{s:4:"file";s:25:"sopa_nicearma-300x210.jpg";s:5:"width";s:3:"300";s:6:"height";s:3:"210";}s:5:"large";a:3:{s:4:"file";s:25:"sopa_nicearma-700x490.jpg";s:5:"width";s:3:"700";s:6:"height";s:3:"490";}}s:10:"image_meta";a:10:{s:8:"aperture";s:1:"0";s:6:"credit";s:0:"";s:6:"camera";s:0:"";s:7:"caption";s:0:"";s:17:"created_timestamp";s:1:"0";s:9:"copyright";s:0:"";s:12:"focal_length";s:1:"0";s:3:"iso";s:1:"0";s:13:"shutter_speed";s:1:"0";s:5:"title";s:0:"";}}
   STRING;
   
   $array = unserialize(stripslashes($string));  // remove unnecessary slashes to make valid
   
   unset($array['sizes']['thumbnail']);  // remove the targeted subarray
   
   //print_r($array);  // uncomment if you want to see the updated array
   echo "Old: $stringn";
   echo "New: " , serialize($array);
   

   Output:

   Old: a:6:{s:5:"width";s:4:"3000";s:6:"height";s:4:"2100";s:14:"hwstring_small";s:23:"height='89' width='128'";s:4:"file";s:25:"2012/02/sopa_nicearma.jpg";s:5:"sizes";a:3:{s:9:"thumbnail";a:3:{s:4:"file";s:23:"sopa_nicearma-15x10.jpg";s:5:"width";s:2:"15";s:6:"height";s:2:"10";}s:6:"medium";a:3:{s:4:"file";s:25:"sopa_nicearma-300x210.jpg";s:5:"width";s:3:"300";s:6:"height";s:3:"210";}s:5:"large";a:3:{s:4:"file";s:25:"sopa_nicearma-700x490.jpg";s:5:"width";s:3:"700";s:6:"height";s:3:"490";}}s:10:"image_meta";a:10:{s:8:"aperture";s:1:"0";s:6:"credit";s:0:"";s:6:"camera";s:0:"";s:7:"caption";s:0:"";s:17:"created_timestamp";s:1:"0";s:9:"copyright";s:0:"";s:12:"focal_length";s:1:"0";s:3:"iso";s:1:"0";s:13:"shutter_speed";s:1:"0";s:5:"title";s:0:"";}}
   // the differences ->                                                                                                                     recalculated subarray size value -^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^- this is removed
   New: a:6:{s:5:"width";s:4:"3000";s:6:"height";s:4:"2100";s:14:"hwstring_small";s:23:"height='89' width='128'";s:4:"file";s:25:"2012/02/sopa_nicearma.jpg";s:5:"sizes";a:2:{s:6:"medium";a:3:{s:4:"file";s:25:"sopa_nicearma-300x210.jpg";s:5:"width";s:3:"300";s:6:"height";s:3:"210";}s:5:"large";a:3:{s:4:"file";s:25:"sopa_nicearma-700x490.jpg";s:5:"width";s:3:"700";s:6:"height";s:3:"490";}}s:10:"image_meta";a:10:{s:8:"aperture";s:1:"0";s:6:"credit";s:0:"";s:6:"camera";s:0:"";s:7:"caption";s:0:"";s:17:"created_timestamp";s:1:"0";s:9:"copyright";s:0:"";s:12:"focal_length";s:1:"0";s:3:"iso";s:1:"0";s:13:"shutter_speed";s:1:"0";s:5:"title";s:0:"";}}
   

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