I'm storing user input into a serialized array in my database.

Later, I deserialize this string into an array to get back my original data.

All works and is fine, but when the user enters really weird characters like these for example
(notice how I'm not talking about characters like ëęæoõö):

⌹ ⌺ ⌻ ⌼ ⍯ ⍰ ⌽ ⌾ ⌿ ⍀ ⍁ ⍂ ⍉ ⍊
more here...

Then my whole site completely messes up... Now I read someone say to base64_encode into database and base64_decode out of the database, but I was wondering if there was any alternative to this?

Thanks in advance,

Nathan