Question

Assuming there are multiple data entities that need to be saved within a database (MySQL), for instance font-size, font-weight, color etc., some of which have fixed values and others are strings input by the user of the application, so they can hold any character whatsoever.
All this information needs to be concatenated and stored as a single, long string.

What is the best separator to use between these entities (assuming a small string), so as to avoid the situation in which that separator is found within the text input by the user?

BTW: I cannot create multiple columns for each individual entities.

Answer 1

Maybe use some data structure language like json?

<?php 
// Array of strings
$strings = array('string1', 'string2', 'string3');

// Encode in json (return string)
$json = json_encode($strings);

// Add to your database
funcThatUpdateYourDatabase($json);

and after:

<?php
// Retrieve json from database;
$json = funcThatRetrieveYourColumn($json);

// convert back in array
$strings = json_decode($json);