Store an Array in MySQL table column and use it in PHP

[Marius]

Hi
I have an array in php:

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$arr = array(3, 'value 1', 'other value');

And a mysql table with these columns: id | name | data
I want to store /insert the $arr array in the "data" column, then to can select and use it in php.
How can I do this, how can I store a php array in mysql?

Hi
You can store an array in a database into a string with JSON format.
Use json_encode() when you want to insert the array. For example:

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$arr = array(3, 'value 1', 'other value');
$sql = "INSERT INTO table (name, data)
VALUES ('The Name', '". json_encode($arr) ."')";
// ...   

- In the "data" column the $arr array will be stored into a JSON string like this:

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[3,"value 1","other value"]

- In the same way you can store eaven multi-dimensional array.
Then, when you select the data, use json_decode() to convert the JSON string back into an array in PHP.

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// Performs the Select ..
$arr = json_decode($row['data'], true);    // add true to convert into array