serialized data array troubles..

[monkeytooth]

Hey all, I'm am stumped. I'm working with someone else's code and I find they are using serialized arrays a lot. unfortunately at present I am not to familiar with serialized arrays and how to work with them and Ive been searching for an answer for a bit but I am not doing so hot in my quest, so I thought I'd come here and give it a crack.

 

From what I gather the person that did this portion of the site I am working on pulled this as is from linkedin. From it I am trying to reconstruct it for the page I am putting into, this information is stored in hundreds of db entries so I cant really redo everything.

 

Is there a direct way of working with this or do I have to covert it to an array or what is the best way to handle data like below, or serialized arrays in general for that matter.

 

Example of what I am looking at:

{"@attributes":{"total":"1"},"position":{"id":"155477330","title":"Lead Architect","summary":{},"start-date":{"year":"2010","month":"10"},"is-current":"true","company":{"id":"209012","name":"Sprint Mobile Inc","type":"Privately Held","industry":"Internet"}}}

 

And another example:

{"@attributes":{"total":"3"},"position":[{"id":"161998487","title":"Senior UX\/UI Designer","summary":"Plan, Design, and Direct User Experience Design\/Development. Also in charge of sharing and spreading the UX philosophy company-wide.","start-date":{"year":"2011","month":"1"},"is-current":"true","company":{"id":"209012","name":"UpMo","type":"Privately Held","industry":"Internet"}},{"id":"149276847","title":"Owner \/ Creative Director","summary":"I'm 27 years old and born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. \n\nAs a web designer and developer with nearly 14 years of experience, I've always found myself to be interested in business development. I started my first web business when I was 17 years old and watched it grow from a one man operation in a bedroom, to twelve employees working from two office locations. \n\nOver the years I have developed over 200 websites and assisted in the design\/development in as many more.\n\nBeing an entrepreneur, I've developed a sixth sense for quality assurance on web projects -- in other words, if I cannot give it a thumbs up for my own business, why would I give it to you?","start-date":{"year":"2010","month":"6"},"is-current":"true","company":{"id":"1487228","name":"Brandon Rivers Consulting, LLC.","industry":"Internet"}},{"id":"71905623","title":"Chairman \/ Chief Executive Officer","summary":"Brandon is responsible for setting strategy and overseeing the day-to-day business and operations of Campus Rhythm.\n\nIn this position, Brandon\u2019s core responsibility is not only facilitating business outside of Campus Rhythm, but balancing internal and external initiatives to build a sustainable corporation. \n\nCampus Rhythm is the FIRST and ONLY fully automated Student to Student textbook network that allows students all over the country to set their own prices, and be connected to other students to buy and sell textbooks.","start-date":{"year":"2007","month":"10"},"is-current":"true","company":{"name":"Campus Rhythm, LLC.","industry":"Internet"}}]}

[kenrbnsn]

To work with the data in the serialized array, you unserialize it, work with in, and re-serailize it:

<?php
$ser = '{"@attributes":{"total":"1"},"position":{"id":"155477330","title":"Lead Architect","summary":{},"start-date":{"year":"2010","month":"10"},"is-current":"true","company":{"id":"209012","name":"Sprint Mobile Inc","type":"Privately Held","industry":"Internet"}}}';
$arr = unserialize($ser);
echo '<pre>' . print_r($arr,true) . '</pre>'; // see what's in the array
//
//  do work in the $arr array
//
$ser = serialize($arr);
?>

 

Actually, the string you posted is not a serialized array, but a JSON encoded array. You deal with that in a similar manner:

<?php
$ser = '{"@attributes":{"total":"1"},"position":{"id":"155477330","title":"Lead Architect","summary":{},"start-date":{"year":"2010","month":"10"},"is-current":"true","company":{"id":"209012","name":"Sprint Mobile Inc","type":"Privately Held","industry":"Internet"}}}';
$arr = json_decode($ser, true);
echo '<pre>' . print_r($arr,true) . '</pre>';
//
// do work in the $arr array
//
$json = json_encode($arr);
?>

 

Ken

[monkeytooth]

Well thank you for the quick response I am going to have to try that in a little bit when I get back to the site I am working on.