Looking at the datastore ...

[cinq]

I don't quite get it.

I was looking at how vb stores her vboptions, seems to serialize it and throws it into the datastore. Is the datastore table just what the name implies, a table to store data ?

a:300:{s:15:"templateversion";s:5:"3.0.5";

A short starting fragment from the options row in datastore shows this.
What does the a, s etc. mean ?

I am trying to find a way to utilize the datastore to hold my hack options similar to the way vb does it.
Please help explain it to me, thanks !

Hmm.. ok the a:300 apparently is the number of elements ?

[Dean C]

The datastore table holds arrays in a string format

http://uk2.php.net/serialize

Take a look at the explanation there, all you have to do is build your array and serialize it and it'll become a string. Then you pull the string back out the database again and unserialize it. It magically becomes an array again

[cinq]

Yep Dean, I remember you tried to tell me to use it previously for caching
I did read up about serialize ( and unserialize ) back then

But what does the s mean ?

Oh nvm, I found that out here
Thanks again Dean