Data serialisation

Storing Serialize data

[ev11]

Hello,
I have a very large form and i want to serialize part of the form for storing in mysql.I am just a starter,can someone help me or know a tutorial?

[penders]

Hi ev11 - have a look at PHP's serialize() [uk.php.net] function.

[ev11]

Hi Penders, sorry wasn't really clear...

well i have some group of radio buttons,
eg :

<input type="radio" name="imd2" id="imd24" value="4">
<input type="radio" name="imd2" id="imd23" value="3">

<input type="radio" name="imd3" id="imd34" value="4">
<input type="radio" name="imd3" id="imd33" value="3">

<input type="radio" name="imd3" id="imd34" value="4">
<input type="radio" name="imd3" id="imd33" value="3">

That i want to serialize. cant figure how to POST the 3 values and serialize it.

[penders]

I assume your last 2 radio button controls should have the name 'imd4'?

To serialize these 3 values, then you could do something like the following when you are processing the form submission:

$data_to_serialize = array(); 
if (isset($_POST['imd2'])) {$data_to_serialize['imd2'] = $_POST['imd2'];} 
if (isset($_POST['imd3'])) {$data_to_serialize['imd3'] = $_POST['imd3'];} 
if (isset($_POST['imd4'])) {$data_to_serialize['imd4'] = $_POST['imd4'];} 
$serialized_data = serialize($data_to_serialize); 
echo $serialized_data;

The serialized data is a string of the form:

a:3:{s:4:"imd2";s:1:"4";s:4:"imd3";s:1:"3";s:4:"imd4";s:1:"4";}

that you can save in your database, recall later and unserialize() to perhaps repopulate your form or whatever.