title: Which is faster to parse? Serialized string or plain PHP or something else?
body: <p>So, for performance reasons, I need my app to store big arrays of data in a way that's fast to parse.
  I know JSON is readable but it's not fast to decode. So it's I should either convert my array into pure php code or I have to serialize it and then deserialize. So, which is faster? Are there any better solutions?
  I could do a benchmark myself, but It's always better to consider other people's experiences :)</p>
  
  <p>More info: By big array I mean something with about 2MB worth of data returned from calling print_r() on it!
  and by converting it into pure php code I mean this:
  suppose this is my array: <code>{"index1":"value1","index2":"val'ue2"}</code>
  and this would what the hypothetical function convert_array_to_php() would return:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$array = array('index1'=&gt;'value1' ,'index2'=&gt;'val\'ue2');
  </code></pre>