I want to save extra information before sending the total order to Paypal. For each item I have created a single column in my MySQL database where I want to store it. Now I was thinking to save it as an array which I can read later for creating a PHP page. Extra fields are taken from input form fields.
By using an array can I be sure not to mixup information?
You can use MySQL JSON datatype to store the array
mysql> CREATE TABLE t1 (jdoc JSON);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.20 sec)
mysql> INSERT INTO t1 VALUES('{"key1": "value1", "key2": "value2"}');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)
To get the above object in PHP
json_encode(["key1"=> "value1", "key2"=> "value2"]);
To convert any array (or any object) into a string using PHP, call the serialize():
$array = array( 1, 2, 3 );
$string = serialize( $array );
echo $string;
$string will now hold a string version of the array. The output of the above code is as follows:
a:3:{i:0;i:1;i:1;i:2;i:2;i:3;}
To convert back from the string to the array, use unserialize():
// $array will contain ( 1, 2, 3 )
$array = unserialize( $string );
Store it in multi valued column with a comma separator in an RDBMs table.
The way things like that are done is with serializing the array, which means "making a string out of it". To better understand this, have a look on this:
$array = array("my", "litte", "array", 2);
$serialized_array = serialize($array);
$unserialized_array = unserialize($serialized_array);
var_dump($serialized_array); // gives back a string, perfectly for db saving!
var_dump($unserialized_array); // gives back the array again
<?php
$myArray = new array('1', '2');
$seralizedArray = serialize($myArray);
?>
Use the PHP function serialize()
to convert arrays to strings. These strings can easily be stored in MySQL database. Using unserialize()
they can be converted to arrays again if needed.
Source: Stackoverflow.com