all, i have recently stumbled upon the pack<http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.pack.php>method. can this be used as a substitute for serialize<http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.serialize.php> ? if so, is there any rationalization for this; like would it perhaps create a more compact representation of the data or run more quickly? it looks like pack cannot be used on object as i didnt see object in the format listing; what would be a typical application of the pack method? thanks, -nathan
