Serialized Values

Hi.

I'm just talking about simple text value fields created by the 4.7.6 profile.module. At least in my profile_values table every value is stored serialized...

Yes, it's a single-line text-field. But I just checked some code, and apparently the modified profile.module I am using is causing the serialization of all data... I didn't know that it also changed this aspect of data storage... And since I used it that way from the start of my site on, I can't really easily change it...

Update: Okay, I found a solution... After some trial-and-error coding, I found a solution that should work with every kind of value, be it serialized or not... (I don't know how to do "real" patch files, so here goes)

Row ~ 580

$use_themeing = variable_get('site_user_list_theme_cells', 0);
while($contact = db_fetch_array($result)) {
+
+ //catch serialized values
+ foreach ($contact as $pfkey => $pfvalue) {
+ $pfvalue_un = unserialize($pfvalue);
+ if ($pfvalue_un) {
+ $contact[$pfkey] = $pfvalue_un;
+ }
+ }
+
// allow items to be themed; see http://drupal.org/node/135189
if ($use_themeing) {

Now I know this is not completely nice since this apparently makes an unnecessary copy of the array, but the alternative while(list()=each()) solution just didn't work...

You might consider adding this to the code to the module any way, since date-fields appear to be serialized even with an original profile.module...

Hi,

I use the profile.module provided by jaxxed ( http://drupal.org/node/29901 ) which allows for multiple choice profile fields, with some further small modifications by myself (mainly incorporating Drupal version updates). I don't think it's a common profile-module-version, though (which I personally find hard to understand...).

And yeah, I guess it's probably not the most resource-saving way of handling data... But optionality is of course always a way, and even if you decide not to include it, then at least a possible solution can now be found here for those people that might need it ;)

Well, thanks again anyway for your support and of course your module.

Follow up for those who might want to use my solution for serialized values:

I noticed that sorting fails with serialized values... A solution would be to replace

$sql .= tablesort_sql($display_header);

with this:

  $tablesort = tablesort_init($display_header);
  if ($tablesort['sql']) { 
    $tablesort_sql = db_escape_string($tablesort['sql']); 
    $tablesort_sort = drupal_strtoupper(db_escape_string($tablesort['sort']));
    $tsstring = ' ORDER BY SUBSTRING_INDEX(' . $tablesort_sql . ", ':', -1) " . $tablesort_sor;
  }
  $sql .= $tsstring;

sorry (typo), the new block should of course be:

  $tablesort = tablesort_init($display_header);
  if ($tablesort['sql']) { 
    $tablesort_sql = db_escape_string($tablesort['sql']); 
    $tablesort_sort = drupal_strtoupper(db_escape_string($tablesort['sort']));
    $tsstring = " ORDER BY SUBSTRING_INDEX(" . $tablesort_sql . ", ':', -1) " . $tablesort_sort;
  }
  $sql .= $tsstring;