Question

I need to do an import of an array of checkboxes, but there is a value that I don’t how it is determined.

The array is based on a user meta option that I created that shows a list of category checkbox options. It grabs all of the categories and creates a checkbox option that can be saved to a user’s profile. The categories have different levels (parent, child, or child-child).

This is part of the coding I used to create the user meta option:

$args = array( 'hide_empty' => 0, 'taxonomy'=> 'category');
$categories =  get_categories($args);

if ($categories){
                        foreach ( $categories as $category ){ 
                            if(in_array($category->term_id,(array)$data)) {
                                $selected = 'checked="checked""';
                            } else {
                                $selected = '';
                            }
                            echo '<input name="user_cats[]" value="'.$category->term_id.'" '.$selected.' type="checkbox"/> '.$category->name.'<br/>';
                        }
                    }

After doing a test save of the some of the checkbox options, I examined the database value of the “user_cats” field, it gives me something like this:

a:2:{i:0;s:2:”20″;i:1;s:3:”343″;}

Now, I know what all but one of the variables stand for.

a = Total amount (quantity) of values/selections

i = Sequential number of the value/selection (*Starting with 0)

“X” = The number value within the parenthesis is the value

My question is, what is the s: value based on? The reason I ask is because Im compiling a csv file of 1,300 records to import and I dont know how the s: values are determined. I tried just give s: a constant value of 2, but after importing the values the options were not selected based on the arrays that were imported. That didn’t work.

So I have a feeling that the selecting of the correct options are based on the s: value. An alternative would be if Im able to import an array without that current syntax.

I spent a long time manually compiling the file with excel functions and tricks and this is the only road block. Any help with this would be a major savior.

Answer 1

That’s the php serialize format:

a:2 - array with 2 elements
s:2 - string 2 characters long
i:0 - integer with value "0"