This is the final version of my Javascript serializer targetted at PHP.

The point:

Objects are most easily passed over the network as serialized strings. Between serialization and unserialization, serialization is by far the easier of the two. Since object passing can sometimes be a process-hungry thing, we want to do things as quickly as possible.

My solution is to always do the hard part in compiled code, while doing the easy part in script. That is, whichever way you're passing an Object, you want to pass it in a natively decoded format for the target.

Since I work mostly in PHP, this meant writing a module that would be able to generate a string that can be decoded with PHP's unserialize() function into a PHP Associative Array (or other applicable type).

Notes:

This lib REQUIRES the Prototype lib. You can hack prototype out of it, of course (by replacing the references to Object.extend() with explicit assignments), but I can't imagine why you'd want to bother; it's used mostly with Ajax.Request anyway.

Previous versions of this code would add the .toPHP() member to the Object prototype. After trying to enumerate things, I found that this is a REALLY bad thing to do, as toPHP springs up where it's not wanted in ALL objects. As a result, I've opted to go the Prototype route and apply it as a member of the Object object.

Please note that if you pass a serialized string to PHP via GET or POST, you'll need to stripslashes() before unserialization.

Javascript sample of use:

var myObject = {
name:'value',
test:['Array','of','strings'],
bool:false,
timestamp: new Date(),
float: 3.1415926539,
number: 42,
func: function () {
alert('Member functions are always omitted from serialization');
}
}
alert(Object.toPHP(myObject));

Output:

a:7:{s:4:"name";s:5:"value";s:4:"test";a:3:{i:0;s:5:"Array";i:1;s:2:"of";i:2;s:7:"strings";}s:4:"bool";b:0;s:9:"timestamp";i:1190897619824;s:5:"float";d:3.1415926539;s:6:"number";i:42;s:4:"func";null}

Sample of subsequent unserialization in PHP (passed via POST as 'myobject')

$myObject=unserialize(stripslashes($_POST['myobject']));
var_dump($myObject);

Output:

array(7) {
["name"]=>
string(5) "value"
["test"]=>
array(3) {
[0]=>
string(5) "Array"
[1]=>
string(2) "of"
[2]=>
string(7) "strings"
}
["bool"]=>
bool(false)
["timestamp"]=>
int(1192296601)
["float"]=>
float(3.1415926539)
["number"]=>
int(42)
["func"]=>
NULL
}

Ok, so I was getting frustrated with the inability to hide data in javascript, as well as a number of other concerns with existing class structures (the requirement to use this.constructor in lieu of self, for example).

As a result, I've thrown together a nice little class constructor that accepts a class definition, as well as a class extender that allows you to build a new class from an existing one, with full access to all that private stuff.

AJAX based submit form and use PHP to get results...

Very easy to use and understand, hope you will find it useful and easily edit it to fit your needs.

This is a simple fade in / fade out javascript slideshow, search engine friendly with low resource usage.

More info here.

Cheers

This detects screen resolution using javascript and makes it available to php by way of cookies.

Proper case a string

convert An integer to a string

Toggles the visibility of an HTML element. Should be part of everyone's javascript toolkit

This is a quick set of overrides for Javascript so that any variable can be passed to PHP in a GET/POST activity. Just call myVar.toPHP();

I use this little set of functions extensively in a little Javascript/PHP RPC handler I wrote. I don't have the reverse function, as I pass JSON back to the browser for the return value.

Note: This lib is not safe for binaries or HTML Elements. The former will come out similar to FTP ASCII breaks, and the latter will cause infinite recursion. If you want to make a speical case for HTML Elements, do so; you could probably just test for parentNode and create a 'safe' object from that. I didn't need it, so I didn't code it.

As for binary safety, at some point between toPHP/escape/post/urldecode/unserialize, the object breaks. Rather than create a huge fix for something I didn't need to do, I put in a quick match/hack. Don't like it? Write the fix yourself.

Here's a quick lil' addon for Prototype that I use often.

Prototype.Promise(condition, action, interval)
condition is a string that you want met before an action is run.
action is a function that does the action.
interval is the polling rate for condition in seconds, and defaults to 1

So, for example, you may want function foo to run, but only once bar has been set:

function foo(a,b) {
this.retVal=a+b;
}
var thingy = {
retVal:0
};
Prototype.Promise(
'thingy.retVal=5',
foo.bind(thingy,5,10),
5
);


Then, in some point in the mysterious future, thingy.retVal gets set to 5, at which point, the Promise goes into effect, and thingy.retVal becomes 10.

Where I find this particularly useful is in making sure that a document is loaded before doing something (condition="$$('body').length>=1), as you can see it used for the include functions.

Speaking of which, the following include functions are great for getting scripts and stylesheets into your page. I won't bother with examples, as they're pretty straightforward.

Meanwhile, Prototype.scriptPath will point to wherever in your server's heirarchy Prototype was loaded from. The regex, you'll note allows for names like prototype.compressed.js, prototype.modified.js, 2007-09-28.prototype.js, etc - just in case you want to keep track of your various hacks of Prototype, as I do.