Storing arrays in a table

sundawg

I have a table that has a column called WEEK.

I basically have a user pick who will win a game HOME or AWAY over 82 weeks of the season.

I am using a form to get their selections where they choose a radio button for HOME or AWAY.

I want to put the data of each selection into an array, week[]. So for week 1 I think the value will be HOME or AWAY and I will put the data in as week[week1] and then for week 2 I would put the data in as week[week2].... is this correct?

Then when they submit their selections I want to pump the array into the data base to later compare each week's pick to a masterweek[] array.

if(week[week1] == masterweek[week1])
$score++;
if{week[week2] == masterweek[week2])
$score++;
......

So can I store the array in the table for all 82 weeks and then pull it out? The table value is week VARCHAR(5); Cuz I was going to go with H (for HOME) and A (for AWAY).

Do I know what I am doing here or do I have to figure out some other way to do this?

Any help will be great!

Thanks,
Sundawg

thorpe

its not a real good way of doing it, but it is possible. you would need to store all the weeks as a dilimetered string.

eg;

home:home:away:home:away

then you can use [ma]explode/man to split the string into each individual week.

drew010

Sure, you can store a php array in a database and pull it out later for use. The way to do this is with the php function [man]serialize[/man]. What this does is create a string representing the array, so its safe to store in a file, cookie, or database and php can translate it back later. You will however have to change the database field type from varchar(5) to something more along the lines of a text type since you serialized array will probably be larger than ever 255 bytes.

to serialize the array, use

$serialized = serialize($week);

//store in database

$week = unserialize($serialized);
//retrieve from database and decode

sundawg

Ok if that is not the best way to do it.. what do you recommend?