Question

I need to serialize array which contains URLs:

Array(
‘url1’ => ‘http://www.example.com’,
‘url2’ => ‘http://www.example1.com’
)
and store it in DB.

When I serialize it standard way, it doesn’t work as it contains special chars. I found solution to encode it with base64_encode . Then it works but string is unreadable from me in DB manager program. Is there a way to make this work without base64_decode ?

Answer 1

1. It should always set off a red flag when you’re trying to store serialized data in a relational database. Normalize your schema so you don’t have to serialize.
2. Storing your data in a poor format so it is readable while in the DB is not a good idea. You want to store it in a format that is the most efficient for database system, then update your manager to unserialize it when you are ready yo display.
3. json_encode is popular these days, and helps make your data portable.