Hi, thank you for the pull request which looks very good. I have a few questions though:

• what is the goal? Is it to avoid serializing the cached values?
• will it break backward compatibility if anyone has serialized enums in the curent version, and then upgrades to a new version with your fix? (i.e. will it break?)

Received many complaints that it is impossible to serialize the list. Apparently, there is a demand for this.

An attempt to unserialize the list results in error:

Notice: unserialize(): Error at offset 54 of 65 bytes

It would be breaking the serialization format. So if anyone has stored (in database or anywhere else) serialized enums, that change would break everything that has been stored.

This is unfortunately a major BC break. Maybe there is a way to keep supporting the old serialization format?

Yes. BC break. I add tests for check current serialize format #50

If you look, you will see that the output string is binary.
This can cause problems when it is stored in the database.

Perhaps you are right.
Perhaps this PR is not need.

Thank you for #50, it's now clearer.

I don't understand why it's serialized as a binary string but I guess it's not the real problem here.

So the big issue is backward compatibility with enums that have already been serialized by users and stored in database (for example). But you said:

An attempt to unserialize the list results in error

So right now is it possible to deserialize an enum?

If it's not possible it means serialization is broken and we can merge your pull request, it will not break an existing feature since serialization doesn't work.

So right now is it possible to deserialize an enum?

I mistake. Now deserialize works. I serialized the enum to a file and successfully deserialized it.

Thanks, that confirms my quick tests too.

So I'm afraid we can't break backward compatibility :/

In this case, i propose to conclude the discussion of this subject.
If you decide to break backwards compatibility, think about accepting this PR.
Thank you for your attention.

👍 thank you