storing post information in mysql as array

How would i go about taking all information thats submitted via POST to a page, and storing it in a db as a readable array

Right now i have this function:

    $mysql = mysql_query("INSERT INTO `table` (`sid`, `contents`) VALUES ('$sid', '$contents')") or die(mysql_error());
    if($mysql){
    return TRUE;
    }else{
    return FALSE;
    }

when i pass $_POST for $contents, all i get in the db is Array I need some way of reading the post values, converting开发者_如何学Python them to something readable, storing them, and then being able to get them back out and loop through the info again

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Although you can serialize an array and store it in a MySQL field, I wouldn't recommend going about it this way. You don't expose what you are trying to achieve in your question, but I think you're just starting out using MySQL.

The way that I'd recommend is just designing a proper table with columns named after the values you wish to store, and then to create a proper query to store the values separately, not as a big serialized array.

Here's a crash course: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/php/2003/12/23/php_foundations.html

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Use serialize:

Generates a storable representation of a value This is useful for storing or passing PHP values around without losing their type and structure.

Example:

// turn $_POST into a string that can be reconstructed to its original array form
$postStr = serialize($_POST);

Use unserialize to recover the string as an array:

// give me back my array
$postArr = unserialize($postStr);

Make sure to correctly escape your string using mysql_real_escape_string prior to inserting in the database.

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You need to serialize http://php.net/manual/en/function.serialize.php and then store the POST data.

To fetch it you need to unserialize it after fetching

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+1 to nash. What you want to achieve is against the database normalization. You may think that it's a good idea now but you'll feel remorse soon. If you're unconfortable with the database level, you could try a ORM.