Writing and Reading an associative array to file

[possien]

I am creating  a poll with a form using check boxes.  The resulting associative array is evaluated and  1 is to be added to values selected.  I have that part down.  I want to write the associative array to a file and the next time someone uses the form the values are read from the file, values added and then write it back to a file.  I thought it would be better to do it like this rather than query a db, add values, etc.  Any ideas on how to do this? This is the array I want to start with:

$vetservice = array(
				"Korea"=>0,
				"Vietnam"=>0,
				"Grenada"=>0,
				"Cold War"=>0,
				"Panama"=>0,
				"Desert Storm"=>0,
				"Mogadishu"=>0,
				"OEF"=>0,
				"OIF"=>0
				);

Values from the post array would be added to the starting value and wrote back to a text file.

[AyKay47]

imo I would use a database for this along with serialize and unserialize.

[possien]

Thats great, I didn't know these existed. So basically I just  read/write the array to the db instead of separate values . 

[AyKay47]

Thats great, I didn't know these existed. So basically I just  read/write the array to the db instead of separate values . 

yes, use serialize to convert the array to a string for db storage, then unserialize to convert it back into an array after selecting it form the db.

[possien]

Thanks AyKay47,

 

Your suggestions works great.  I used google graphs to display the data.  You can see it at http://www.vvaarizona.org/index.php