PHP - Serialize an array for use in a MySQL table

This is the function I made to "serialize" a PHP array for dumping into a MySQL table into a readable, searchable format. It separates each value with an uncommon character , "|".

When you grab the "serialized" data out of the DB later, you should run the following to convert it back to an array --

$values_array = explode("|", $seralizedValues);

I'm aware that there is a PHP function to serialize data, but I wanted to make my own simpler, easier version that did not insert the array keys or any other junk into the array. Take it to leave it.

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function serializeArray($arr)
{
$temp = "";

if(!empty($arr))
{
$iter = 0;
$arr_size = count($arr);

foreach ($arr as $item)
{
$iter++;
$temp.=$item;
if($iter!==$arr_size) $temp.="|";

}
}

return $temp;
}