The joys of serializing data
 

To serialize a variable or object in PHP means to take the variable or object and convert it to a string that can be stored anywhere, including, relevant to vB, a MySQL database. Later, it can be unserialized, at which point it'll be (nearly) exactly the same as when it was serialized.

An example:
Remember to addslashes $serialized when making a query because it could contain quotes. Also note that some tiny things can be lost when serializing; namely, internal array pointers, among others.

Reference:
http://www.php.net/serialize
http://www.php.net/unserialize (way faster than serializing)

Note that you can't serialize resources (such as a mysql connection) so the example posted won't work.

The example itself should work, though, because $DB_site is just an object that never stores a result handle (at least not permanently).

One of the variables in $DB_site is $link_id and that can't be serialized. ;)
$query_id can't be serialized either.

In order to run $DB_site->query(), $link_id has to be a valid MySQL connection resource.

Oh, good point ;)

But the concept is there ;)

Great! A thread on serializing. ;)

I'm just starting to learn this. Maybe you can answer this question, filburt. How do we determine this when making the query for the datstore?

That's a snippet of caode we're using. What are the s:1 and the s:9 (and s:14) for? I know the zero is for the default value. And is there an easier way to list this so it can be added to easily?

s(tring):(Length)1:(Value)"0";s(tring):(Length)14:(Value)"getthreadviews";

I'd guess.

Why would you need 2 string lengths in there? ;)

Arn't there two strings - "0" (length 1) and "getthreadviews" (length 14)?

Ahhh, ok, now I understand. ;)

Thank you, sir. ;)