[scott2500uk]

Now Ive always been told the easiest way to store data in mysql thats in a multi dimensional array is by serializing the array and then inserting into MySQL

Now im using the php function serialize() no problem what so ever and inserting the serialized data into a LONGTEXT field in MySQL. When the data comes out the other end I just unserialize the data. but sometimes only half of the data is inserted. It seems to be when we insert a very large multi dimensional array.

The data I store is for a user and what websites that user has accessed and what bandwidth he used on each webpage. Now a user might go on 100 different urls a day and then on top of it HR might do a custom report on the user for a months usage giving 1000+ different websites accessed.

Now I thought that LONGTEXT could store over 1GB of data in its field? Surely my serialized array doesnt come to sizes of that? So what could be causing my big arrays to only insert half the data?

[Nico]

I found 2 possible solutions on php.net:

www.php.net/serialize#79339
Not sure what he means with "behave a bit crazy", but it might the same problem you're facing.

www.php.net/serialize#61675

[scott2500uk]

thx nico maybe i should just run the serialized data through mysql_real_escape_string(); before putting it into the database??

[Nico]

You should do that always anyway. (Unless it's just a very simple string or an integer)