Does this data format have a name?

Question

I'm not sure what to call this:

a:2:{s:3:"Key";a:5:{i:0;s:3:"day";i:1;s:5:"month";i:2;s:4:"year";i:3;i:1912;i:4;s:4:"2012";}s:12:"ApplyDefault";s:0:"";}

This is what's stored in a database field for a custom field type (date of birth) in an Interspire program written in php. I can kind of figure out what's going on a:2: seems to mean "two properties", i:0;s:3:"day"; means "first item, 3 character string, 'day' " ... and so on.

Question is: what do I call this? And is it a standardized format or specific to Interspire?

Answer 1

That looks like PHP serialized data. See http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.serialize.php#66147