Unserialize not working for multi-dimensional array - php

Question

So I have run into this problem many times before, but I would always get around it using base64_encode/decode and that would get it working right away.
However, in this application I cannot use that, because I need to be able to query this field and I wouldn't know how I could do that if it was encoded.
Pardon my ignorance, but is there a way to unserialize a multi-dimensional array without using base64 encoding?
Update 1
Removing the strings and turning them to integers fixes the problem. So it is either a problem with strings, or I suspect the " is causing issues. Anyway to work around that?
For this application, the second element of the array represents a date in a format that it would be searched under. Ideally, I would like to leave that as is, but if it is necessary I suppose I can use an integer to represent the number of days away from a constant, and then interpret that result.
Below is the code:
// Load Contact from Database
$returnFields = array('_AttendanceRecords');
$Contact = $app->loadCon(39732,$returnFields);
echo "<pre>";
print_r($Contact);
echo "</pre>";
echo $Contact['_AttendanceRecords'] . "</br>";
// To unserialize...
$AttendanceRecordsLoad = unserialize($Contact['_AttendanceRecords']);
echo "<pre>";
print_r($AttendanceRecordsLoad);
echo "</pre>";
Output is:
Array (
[_AttendanceRecords] => a:1:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;i:1;i:1;s:10:"10-09-2015";i:2;s:1:"1";}} )
a:1:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;i:1;i:1;s:10:"10-09-2015";i:2;s:1:"1";}}
As you can see, the final print_r comes out empty, which I believe is returning false for whatever reason.
Update 2
So after more fiddling around, I made this new code:
Code
$ContactId = 39732;
$returnFields = array('_AttendanceRecords');
$Contact = $app->loadCon($ContactId,$returnFields);
echo $Contact['_AttendanceRecords'] . " - IS result </br>";
echo $str = 'a:1:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;i:0;i:1;s:8:"10-10-15";i:2;i:1;}}'; echo " - str result </br>";
// To unserialize...
$AttendanceRecordsLoad = unserialize($Contact['_AttendanceRecords']);
$AttendanceRecordsLoad1 = unserialize($str);
echo "IS<pre>";
print_r($AttendanceRecordsLoad);
echo "</pre>";
echo "str<pre>";
print_r($AttendanceRecordsLoad1);
echo "</pre>";
Output
a:1:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;i:0;i:1;s:8:"10-10-15";i:2;i:1;}} - IS result
a:1:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;i:0;i:1;s:8:"10-10-15";i:2;i:1;}} - str result
IS
str
Array (
[0] => Array
(
[0] => 0
[1] => 10-10-15
[2] => 1
)
)
I don't understand. The strings appear identical. Yet the result that comes from the database won't unserialize if it contains a string.
Does that make sense to anyone?
Update 3
Ok, so now I used var_dump instead of echo and I get this outputted:
Output
string(61) "a:1:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;i:0;i:1;s:8:"10-10-15";i:2;i:1;}}" - IS
result
string(51) "a:1:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;i:0;i:1;s:8:"10-10-15";i:2;i:1;}}" - str result
So obviously they are not identical. But I tried trim before, and now, and it doesn't remove any hidden extra characters that somehow have lodged themselves in to this string.
What does that mean and how do I correct this?

Answer 1

Ok figured it out by looking at this question:
SOLUTION FOUND - Same strings, but var_dump() says one is 5 characters longer
The fix was using this on the returned result from the database:
html_entity_decode($string], ENT_QUOTES)
Hope that helps someone else too.