
Research
2025 Report: Destructive Malware in Open Source Packages
Destructive malware is rising across open source registries, using delays and kill switches to wipe code, break builds, and disrupt CI/CD.
php2json
Advanced tools
.. image:: https://travis-ci.org/mbachry/php2json.svg?branch=master :alt: Build status :target: https://travis-ci.org/mbachry/php2json
A small library that aims to provide a fast way of decoding PHP serialization format. Use it if you need to migrate large amount of PHP data and performance is essential.
The library provides only one function::
>>> import php2json
>>> php2json.php2json(b's:3:"foo";')
b'"foo"'
It's goal is to convert PHP serializer string into JSON string as fast
as possible. The assumption is that JSON decoders (such as standard
json module or ujson) are much better optimized than
phpserialize.
.. _ujson: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/ujson .. _phpserialize: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/phpserialize/
Here's a simple benchmark where I pit phpserialize against php2json combined with ujson and json::
phpserialize: 6.60s
php2json+ujson: 0.15s
php2json+json: 0.19s
speedup (ujson): 4337%
speedup (json): 3485%
Install with::
pip install php2json
Run test with::
pip install tox
make clean
tox .
Run benchmark with::
pip install -r requirements-test.txt
make bench
Few limitations apply:
only deserialization is possible
PHP objects are not supported
behaviour is undefined in presence of unicode strings
input data must adhere to JSON standards, most notably: array keys must be strings or values easily convertible to strings (such as integers)
FAQs
Convert PHP serializer strings to JSON
We found that php2json demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
Did you know?

Socket for GitHub automatically highlights issues in each pull request and monitors the health of all your open source dependencies. Discover the contents of your packages and block harmful activity before you install or update your dependencies.

Research
Destructive malware is rising across open source registries, using delays and kill switches to wipe code, break builds, and disrupt CI/CD.

Security News
Socket CTO Ahmad Nassri shares practical AI coding techniques, tools, and team workflows, plus what still feels noisy and why shipping remains human-led.

Research
/Security News
A five-month operation turned 27 npm packages into durable hosting for browser-run lures that mimic document-sharing portals and Microsoft sign-in, targeting 25 organizations across manufacturing, industrial automation, plastics, and healthcare for credential theft.