Re: array field type

another option might be to store xml snippets that match the array. if you are using large numbers of arrays, perhaps a revamping of the db structure to map the arrays to sub-tables might be in order bastien

From: Micah Stevens <micah@raincross-tech.com> To: Sancar Saran <sancar.saran@evodot.com> CC: php-db@lists.php.net, php-general@lists.php.net Subject: Re: [PHP-DB] array field type Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2007 15:04:42 -0800 Not a single field, but there's several methods of storing trees of information, which is what an array is. Here's one: Nested Array storage table: ArrayID (int, autonumber) keyname (text) parent (int) data (bigtext or whatever would be appropriate for the data you're storing) For an array like this: array('one'=>1, 'two'=>array('three'=>3, 'four'=>4)) the table would store these rows: 1, 'one', 0, 1 2, 'two', 0, 2 3, 'three', 2, 3 4, 'four', 2, 4 You can use a recursive function to restore the array, unless you require the granular functionality this type of process would give you such as sorting and filtering and statistics gathering. -Micah However, I think in the long run, you'd be better off serializing the data. -Micah On 03/04/2007 02:15 PM, Sancar Saran wrote:

On Sunday 04 March 2007 23:04, Sancar Saran wrote:

Hi, I want to know is there any db server around there for store php arrays natively. Regards Sancar

Thanks for responses, it seems I have to give more info about situation. In my current project, we had tons of arrays. They are very deep and unpredictable nested arrays. Currently we are using serialize/unserialize and it seems it comes with own cpu cost. Xdebug shows some serializing cost blips. Sure it was not SO BIG deal (for now of course). My db expertise covers a bit mysql and mysql does not have any array type field (enum just so simple). I just want to know is there any way to keep array data type natively in a sql field. Regards. Sancar

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