Persist Large Object Graphs in PHP

Marvin Elia Hoppe — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 18:12:32 +0000

Tired of spinning up a DB for small tools? You can persist PHP objects to disk with lazy loading, TTLs, and safe writes using melia/object-storage. It’s fast to adopt, crash-safe, and keeps memory low.

What it is

File-backed storage for PHP objects
UUID-based references and lazy loading
Per-object TTL/expiration
Atomic writes and locking
Class stubs for fast listing by class
Optional in-memory cache

When to use

CLIs, daemons, small web apps, plugins
Prototypes or self-hosted tools with a writable directory
Complex object graphs without a full database

When not to

You need queries/joins across large datasets
Multi-host concurrent writes without a distributed lock

Quickstart

Install

composer require melia/object-storage

Store and load

<?php
use melia∖ObjectStorage∖ObjectStorage;

$storage = new ObjectStorage(__DIR__ . '/var/object-store');

$note = (object)['title' => 'Hello', 'body' => 'World'];
$uuid = $storage->store($note);

$loaded = $storage->load($uuid);
echo $loaded->title; // Hello

Lazy references

<?php
$owner = (object)['email' => 'owner@example.com'];
$ownerId = $storage->store($owner);

$team = (object)['name' => 'Team', 'owner' => $owner];
$teamId = $storage->store($team);

$loaded = $storage->load($teamId);
$ownerObj = $loaded->owner->getObject(); // resolved on access

TTL and expiration

<?php
$session = (object)['user' => 'alice'];
$id = $storage->store($session, ttl: 60); // 60s
$storage->setExpiration($id, new DateTimeImmutable('+10 minutes'));

List by class

<?php
foreach ($storage->list(Some∖ClassName::class) as $uuid) {
    // handle UUIDs of that class
}

Searching objects

<?php
foreach ($storage->match(function (object $object) {
    return true;
}) as $uuid => $object) {
    // handle UUIDs of that class
}

How it works

Graphs become JSON + metadata with UUID pointers
Lazy references load only when needed
Atomic writes + locks reduce corruption
Checksums avoid unnecessary rewrites

Practical tips

Use a fast, writable storage directory
Run a periodic GC for expired objects
Single host by default; add a distributed lock for multi-host
Inject a PSR-16 cache for hot objects

Takeaway For small and embedded PHP apps, file-backed object storage with lazy refs and TTLs can replace a database. Install, store, load—done.

DEV Community: Marvin Elia Hoppe