Serialization

Classes which implement the SerializableInterface expose methods related to serialization.

SerializableInterface::getBuffer() - This method returns the binary representation of the class as a Buffer.

SerializableInterface::getHex() - Returns the serialized form, but in hex encoding.

SerializableInterface::getInt() - Where the number is an unsigned integer, getInt can convert the number to a big-num decimal.

SerializableInterface::getBinary() - Returns the object serialized, as a byte string.

Serializers

Objects which implement SerializableInterface usually have a serializer also capable of parsing.

Serializers expose three main methods:

fromParser(Parser $parser) - attempt to extract the structure from the provided parser

parse() - attempt to parse the data: allows hex, or Buffer's

serialize($object) - converts the object into a Buffer