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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T09:56:46+00:00

On the Facebook FQL pages it shows the FQL table structure, here is a

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On the Facebook FQL pages it shows the FQL table structure, here is a screenshot below to show some of it (screenshot gone).

You will notice that some items are an array, such as meeting_sex, meeting_for current_location. I am just curious, do you think they are storing this as an array in mysql or just returning it as one, from this data it really makes me think it is stored as an array. IF you think it is, or if you have done similar, what is a good way to store these items as an array into 1 table field and then retrieve it as an array on a PHP page?

alt text http://img2.pict.com/3a/70/2a/2439254/0/screenshot2b187.png

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  1. Editorial Team

    There are two options for storing as an array:

    The first, which you mentioned, is to make one, or several, tables, and enumerate each possible key you intend to store. This is the best for searching and having data that makes sense.

    However, for what you want to do, use serialize(). Note: DO NOT EVER EVER EVER try to search against this data in its native string form. It is much faster (and saner) to just reload it, call unserialize(), and then search for your criteria than to develop some crazy search pattern to do your bidding.

    EDIT: If it were me, and this were something I was seriously developing for others to use (or even for myself to use, to be completely honest), I would probably create a second lookup table to store all the keys as columns; Heck, if you did that, mysql_fetch_assoc() could give you the array you wanted just by running a quick second query (or you could extract them out via a JOINed query). However, if this is just quick-and-dirty to get whatever job done, then a serialized array may be for you. Unless you really, really don’t care about ever searching that data, the proper column-to-key relationship is, I think most would agree, superior.

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