Serialize/Unserialize

[focus310]

Hello:

I'm trying to use the serialize/unserialize function and I'm receiving the following error message:

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach()

I've been staring at this for a while and I'm not sure what's wrong. Can someone help me out?

This is the code.

<?php 
require_once ('mysql_connect.php');
                      $query="SELECT * FROM app_vol";
                      $result=mysql_query($query);

if ($result) {

while($row=@mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC))
{
$interests3 = unserialize($row['interests']);

foreach($interests3 as $test)
{
print $test.', ';
}
}
}
?>

This is how the data appears in the table for "interests".
a:4:{i:0;s:14:"Transportation";i:1;s:9:"Mentoring"

It seems that the serialize part works but I can't seem to unserialize.

Can someone help me out? Thanks in advance.

[NogDog]

I don't see anything obviously wrong. All I can suggest is to add some error-checking, and maybe up the error_reporting level:

error_reporting(E_ALL);
require_once ('mysql_connect.php');
                      $query="SELECT * FROM app_vol";
                      $result=mysql_query($query);

if ($result) {

  while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC))
  {
    if(isset($row['interests']))
    {
      $interests3 = unserialize($row['interests']);
      if(is_array($interests3))
      {
        foreach($interests3 as $test)
        echo "$test,";
      }
      else
      {
        user_error("\$interests3 is not an array: $interests3");
      }
    }
    else
    {
      user_error("\$row['interests'] is not set<br><pre>".print_r($row, 1)."</pre>\n");
    }
  }
}

[Scriptmaker]

It doesn't look like it is actually serializing the array correctly. It should look like this:

a:2:{i:0;s:14:"Transportation";i:1;s:9:"Mentoring";}

The array only has 2 values, not 4
It should have a
;
and a
}
at the end.

<?php

$serializedarr="a:2:{i:0;s:14:\"Transportation\";i:1;s:9:\"Mentoring\";}";

$unserializedarr = unserialize($serializedarr);

foreach($unserializedarr as $string){
echo $string."<br />";
}



?>

Outputs:

Transportation
Mentoring

====

You might want to login to your database and see what the max number of characters the "interests" column can hold. It is most likely set at 50 which is causing the truncation.

[focus310]

Hi NogDog,

I tried your code to see what's going on and these are my results:
Notice: unserialize() [function.unserialize]: Error at offset 50 of 50 bytes in C:\Inetpub\fullfocus\AngelHouse\test.php on line 13

Notice: $interests3 is not an array: in C:\Inetpub\fullfocus\AngelHouse\test.php on line 21

Notice: unserialize() [function.unserialize]: Error at offset 50 of 50 bytes in C:\Inetpub\fullfocus\AngelHouse\test.php on line 13

Notice: $interests3 is not an array: in C:\Inetpub\fullfocus\AngelHouse\test.php on line 21

Notice: unserialize() [function.unserialize]: Error at offset 51 of 50 bytes in C:\Inetpub\fullfocus\AngelHouse\test.php on line 13

Notice: $interests3 is not an array: in C:\Inetpub\fullfocus\AngelHouse\test.php on line 21

Notice: unserialize() [function.unserialize]: Error at offset 37 of 50 bytes in C:\Inetpub\fullfocus\AngelHouse\test.php on line 13

Notice: $interests3 is not an array: in C:\Inetpub\fullfocus\AngelHouse\test.php on line 21

Notice: unserialize() [function.unserialize]: Error at offset 50 of 50 bytes in C:\Inetpub\fullfocus\AngelHouse\test.php on line 13

Notice: $interests3 is not an array: in C:\Inetpub\fullfocus\AngelHouse\test.php on line 21

This is the new script.

<?php 
error_reporting(E_ALL);
require_once ('mysql_connect.php');
                      $query="SELECT * FROM app_vol";
                      $result=mysql_query($query);

if ($result) {

  while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC))
  {
    if(isset($row['interests']))
    {
      $interests3 = unserialize($row['interests']);
      if(is_array($interests3))
      {
        foreach($interests3 as $test)
        echo "$test,";
      }
      else
      {
        user_error("\$interests3 is not an array: $interests3");
      }
    }
    else
    {
      user_error("\$row['interests'] is not set<br><pre>".print_r($row, 1)."</pre>\n");
    }
  }
}


?>
[code=php]

[focus310]

Hi Scriptmaker,

This is my code for the serializing part of the two checkbox fields.

if ( isset ( $_POST['availability'] ) && is_array ( $_POST['availability'] ) ) { 
     $_SESSION['availability'] = serialize($_POST['availability']); 
   } else { 
     $errors[] = 'Availability is a required field, Please select at least one.'; 
   }    

   if ( isset ( $_POST['interests'] ) && is_array ( $_POST['interests'] ) ) { 
     $_SESSION['interests'] = serialize($_POST['interests']); 
   } else { 
     $errors[] = 'Interests is a required field, Please select at least one.'; 
   }

[Scriptmaker]

focus310 wrote:

Hi Scriptmaker,

This is my code for the serializing part of the two checkbox fields.

I'll take a look at it, but did you check the database column length? If you count the characters, it looks like it is truncating at 50 characters. It looks like it is serializing correctly, it just isn't able to store the entire serialized array in the field.

[NogDog]

Right now, my money is on Scriptmaker's idea that the database is truncating it. For something like this, I'd probably use a TEXT type of column rather than VARCHAR, as the total length is dependent both on the number of elements in the array and the size of each, plus the additional characters that serialize() adds to the total, making it hard to anticipate the total size required (plus the fact that VARCHAR maxes out at 255 characters).

[focus310]

I will look into changing the column type to something bigger.