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The array in the database is stored as a serialized string, such as this:

a:1:{i:0;a:4:{s:8:"category";s:26:"Category Name";s:4:"date";s:0:"";s:8:"citation";s:617:"617 Char Length String (shortened on purpose)";s:4:"link";s:0:"";}}

It's structure should resemble the following when unseralized:

array {
    id => array { category => Value, date => Value, citation => Value, link => Value }
}

The php code I'm using is:

$prevPubs = unserialize($result[0]['citations']);

The $result[0]['citations'] is the serialized string. $prevPubs will return false. Which indicates an error if I'm not mistaken.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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3 Answers 3

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b:0 is boolean:false in serialized format. Unserialize would NOT return that exact string, it'd just return an actual boolean FALSE. This means that whatever you're passing into the unserialize call is not a valid serialized string. Most likely it's been corrupted somehow, causing the unserialize call to fail.

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1 Comment

You were right, twice. b:0 actually was getting inputted back into the table, and I just remembered where I saw b:0 incorrectly. I was getting a false, and it was because as Peter said I had a multidimensional array.
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in order to handle serialized multidmensional arrays and mysql use this:

<?php
//to safely serialize
$safe_string_to_store = base64_encode(serialize($multidimensional_array));

//to unserialize...
$array_restored_from_db = unserialize(base64_decode($encoded_serialized_string));
?>

i'm pretty sure serialized string in your database is corrupted

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5 Comments

This was the problem. Thank you.
The database most certainly did not corrupt the string. The char-set encoding did. Make the field binary or double-check the char-set settings when you connect to your database.
I'm not exactly sure if this is what you mean, but I set the char-set to utf8-bin where it should of been. I have the field as a mediumtext field. Is there an advantage to having it as a blob? Lastly, I'm running into another issue with printing the array out. In the following code it has the unserialized, decoded array. Printing $result, shows this array as expected. foreach ($result as $array) { foreach ($array as $key => $value) { if ($value['link'] == '') { echo $value['citation']; } else { echo '<a href="'.$value['link'].'">'.$value['citation'].'</a>'; } } }
The issue is that it cycles through the link three times with the values P, O, and <, which aren't in the array at all.
Anyways mysql+php as long i remember gives me troubles with utf-8 charset. Check this doc php.net/manual/en/function.unserialize.php - people had same problem as you...
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You have to unserialize the whole string $result = unserialize($serialized);

and then use the $result[0]['citation'] index of the result array.

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1 Comment

The $result[0]['citations'] is actually the serialized string. I'll edit the original message to make it more clear.

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