On thing you might want to do is replace an old string with a shorter one, or to clear out the string altogether.

To replace the string, you can zero-byte pad the string you are writing:

<?php
    //    $shmid is from shmop_open()
    $size = 128;
    $string = 'something';

    //    write
        $string = str_pad(string, $size, "\0");
        shmop_write($shmid, $string, 0);

    //    read
        print rtrim(shmop($shmid,0,0),,"\0");

    //    clear
        $string = str_repeat("\0",$size);
        shmop_write($shmid, $string, 0);
?>

I guess pack-unpack are the handy functions for encoding/decoding data as/from a binary string for shmop_write/shmop_read. Example:

$format='LLLLSSCCCC';  //data format for pack
$key=1; 
if( !($shmid=shmop_open($key,'n',0660,30)) )
  die('shmop_open failed.'); 

//my data to encode:
$hd=array('ALIVE1'=>1,'ALIVE2'=>2,'ALIVE3'=>3,'ALIVE4'=>4,
      'CRTPTR'=>5,'CRTSEQ'=>6,
      'CTW'=>7,'LOCK'=>8,'PLAY'=>9,'MISS'=>10
);

$tmp=pack( $format, $hd['ALIVE1'],$hd['ALIVE2'],$hd['ALIVE3'],$hd['ALIVE4'],  $hd['CRTPTR'],$hd['CRTSEQ'],$hd['CTW'],$hd['LOCK'],$hd['PLAY'],$hd['MISS'] );

if( ($w=shmop_write($shmid,$tmp,0))!=24 )
  die('write error $w='.$w);

And reading from some other process:
$key=1; 
if( !($shmid=shmop_open($key,'w',0,0)) )
  die('shmop_open failed.'); 

$formatR='L4ALIVE/SCRTPTR/SCRTSEQ/CCTW/CLOCK/CPLAY/CMISS'; //data format for unpack

$hd=unpack( $formatR, shmop_read( $shmid,0,24) );
echo'hd:<pre>';print_r($hd);echo'</pre>';