PHP Cookbook

1.13. Storing Binary Data in Strings

Problem

You want to parse a string that contains values encoded as a binary structure or encode values into a string. For example, you want to store numbers in their binary representation instead of as sequences of ASCII characters.

Solution

Use pack( ) to store binary data in a string:

$packed = pack('S4',1974,106,28225,32725);

Use unpack( ) to extract binary data from a string:

$nums = unpack('S4',$packed);

Discussion

The first argument to pack( ) is a format string that describes how to encode the data that’s passed in the rest of the arguments. The format string S4 tells pack( ) to produce four unsigned short 16-bit numbers in machine byte order from its input data. Given 1974, 106, 28225, and 32725 as input, this returns eight bytes: 182, 7, 106, 0, 65, 110, 213, and 127. Each two-byte pair corresponds to one of the input numbers: 7 * 256 + 182 is 1974; 0 * 256 + 106 is 106; 110 * 256 + 65 = 28225; 127 * 256 + 213 = 32725.

The first argument to unpack( ) is also a format string, and the second argument is the data to decode. Passing a format string of S4, the eight-byte sequence that pack( ) produced returns a four-element array of the original numbers:

print_r($nums);
Array
               (
                   [1] => 1974
                   [2] => 106
                   [3] => 28225
                   [4] => 32725
               )

In unpack( ), format characters and their count can be followed by a string to be used as an array key. For example:

$nums = unpack('S4num',$packed);
print_r($nums);
Array
               (
                   [num1] => 1974
                   [num2] => 106
                   [num3] => 28225
                   [num4] => 32725
               )

Multiple format characters must be separated with / in unpack( ):

$nums = unpack('S1a/S1b/S1c/S1d',$packed);
print_r($nums);
Array
               (
                   [a] => 1974
                   [b] => 106
                   [c] => 28225
                   [d] => 32725
               )

The format characters that can be used with pack( ) and unpack( ) are listed in Table 1-2.

Table 1-2. Format characters for pack( ) and unpack( )

Format character	Data type
a	NUL-padded string
A	Space-padded string
h	Hex string, low nibble first
H	Hex string, high nibble first
c	signed char
C	unsigned char
s	signed short (16 bit, machine byte order)
S	unsigned short (16 bit, machine byte order)
n	unsigned short (16 bit, big endian byte order)
v	unsigned short (16 bit, little endian byte order)
i	signed int (machine-dependent size and byte order)
I	unsigned int (machine-dependent size and byte order)
l	signed long (32 bit, machine byte order)
L	unsigned long (32 bit, machine byte order)
N	unsigned long (32 bit, big endian byte order)
V	unsigned long (32 bit, little endian byte order)
f	float (machine dependent size and representation)
d	double (machine dependent size and representation)
x	NUL byte
X	Back up one byte
@	NUL-fill to absolute position

For a, A, h, and H, a number after the format character indicates how long the string is. For example, A25 means a 25-character space-padded string. For other format characters, a following number means how many of that type appear consecutively in a string. Use * to take the rest of the available data.

You can convert between data types with unpack( ). This example fills the array $ascii with the ASCII values of each character in $s:

$s = 'platypus';
$ascii = unpack('c*',$s);
print_r($ascii);
Array
               (
                   [1] => 112
                   [2] => 108
                   [3] => 97
                   [4] => 116
                   [5] => 121
                   [6] => 112
                   [7] => 117
                   [8] => 115
               )

See Also

Documentation on pack( ) at http://www.php.net/pack and unpack( ) at http://www.php.net/unpack .