Question

I have an array being collect via a form like below:

<select multiple="multiple" name="contractors[]" >

Input code to save the array in the DB.

$options = $_POST['contractors'];  
$serializedoptions = serialize($options);

It saves the array in the DB in the format below, but I cannot display it properly. When I pull the entire It shows:

a:4:{i:0;s:28:Contractor1";i:1;s:15:"Contractor2";i:2;s:10:"Contractor3";}

How can I get it to display in a more readable format?

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM form_2 GROUP BY jobname");

echo "<table border='1'>
<tr>
<th><font size='1'>Job Name</th>
<th><font size='1'>Contractors</th>
<th><font size='1'>Notes</th>
</tr>";

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
  {
  echo "<tr>";
  echo "<td><font size='1'>" . $row['jobname'] . "</font></td>";
  echo "<td><font size='1'>" . $row['contractors'] . "</font></td>";
  echo "<td><font size='1'>" . $row['notes'] . "</font></td>";

  echo "</tr>";

  }
echo "</table>";

Answer 1

That which is serialized must be unserialized. Just use the unserialize function on the data before working with it. In your case, an array will be returned.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.unserialize.php

$options = unserialize($serializedoptions);

Other languages can unserialize PHP serialize() as well if you find supporting code for it. For example, here is one for JavaScript: http://phpjs.org/functions/unserialize/

EDIT:

Updating the code you added, you can display it like any other PHP variable once you unserialize the value.

<?php
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
    echo "<tr>";
    echo "<td><font size='1'>" . $row['jobname'] . "</font></td>";
    echo "<td><font size='1'>";
    $contractors = unserialize($row['contractors']);
    foreach ($contractors as $contractor)
        echo htmlspecialchars($contractor).'<br/>';
    echo "</font></td>";
    echo "<td><font size='1'>" . $row['notes'] . "</font></td>";
    echo "</tr>";
}
?>