title: Large Serialized PHP Array file
body: <p>I am working with a large PHP file that contains 1 very large serialized array. The use-case is fairly simple, we unserialize the big array at runtime, and utilise some of the array nodes as variables. </p>
  
  <p>The file recently grew from ~6mb to >40mb, and so the load-time of the page based on it is now taking longer than 12 seconds.</p>
  
  <p>I've SPLIT the file into 2 almost equal parts - as in most cases we need data from 1 or the other -- this sped things up a bit but it still seems like a big lag for a mere 40-80MB. </p>
  
  <p>How do I speed things up, pref without affecting the entire PHP environment or files outside the folder this is hosted in.</p>