Wordpress Parsing Array in PHP

Question

How can I parse this in PHP:

a:8:{s:3:"key";s:19:"field_501743d4baa78";s:5:"label";s:8:"Category";s:4:"name";s:8:"category";s:4:"type";s:8:"checkbox";s:12:"instructions";s:0:"";s:8:"required";s:1:"1";s:7:"choices";a:17:{s:4:"Arts";s:4:"Arts";s:8:"Business";s:8:"Business";s:14:"Communications";s:14:"Communications";s:16:"Criminal Justice";s:16:"Criminal Justice";s:13:"Culinary Arts";s:13:"Culinary Arts";s:9:"Education";s:9:"Education";s:11:"Engineering";s:11:"Engineering";s:11:"Health Care";s:11:"Health Care";s:22:"Information Technology";s:22:"Information Technology";s:13:"International";s:13:"International";s:5:"Legal";s:5:"Legal";s:17:"Political Science";s:17:"Political Science";s:10:"Psychology";s:10:"Psychology";s:8:"Religion";s:8:"Religion";s:7:"Science";s:7:"Science";s:9:"Technical";s:9:"Technical";s:10:"Veterinary";s:10:"Veterinary";}s:8:"order_no";s:1:"3";}

to get a list of all the "categorys" such as Arts, Business, Communications etc etc

Thanks for your help

UPDATE

After running unserialize this is what i get:

array(8) { ["key"]=> string(19) "field_501743d4baa78" ["label"]=> string(8) "Category" ["name"]=> string(8) "category" ["type"]=> string(8) "checkbox" ["instructions"]=> string(0) "" ["required"]=> string(1) "1" ["choices"]=> array(17) { ["Arts"]=> string(4) "Arts" ["Business"]=> string(8) "Business" ["Communications"]=> string(14) "Communications" ["Criminal Justice"]=> string(16) "Criminal Justice" ["Culinary Arts"]=> string(13) "Culinary Arts" ["Education"]=> string(9) "Education" ["Engineering"]=> string(11) "Engineering" ["Health Care"]=> string(11) "Health Care" ["Information Technology"]=> string(22) "Information Technology" ["International"]=> string(13) "International" ["Legal"]=> string(5) "Legal" ["Political Science"]=> string(17) "Political Science" ["Psychology"]=> string(10) "Psychology" ["Religion"]=> string(8) "Religion" ["Science"]=> string(7) "Science" ["Technical"]=> string(9) "Technical" ["Veterinary"]=> string(10) "Veterinary" } ["order_no"]=> string(1) "3" }

however i'm not sure how to loop through and just get the category names - sorry - i'm new to PHP - probably just doing something stupid - thanks for your help

John Conde · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-24 14:10:33Z

4

That's just a serialized array. Just unserialize it and getting the values is easy:

$array = unserialize(a:8:{s:3:"key";s:19:"field_501743d4baa78";s:5:"label";s:8:"Category";s:4:"name";s:8:"category";s:4:"type";s:8:"checkbox";s:12:"instructions";s:0:"";s:8:"required";s:1:"1";s:7:"choices";a:17:{s:4:"Arts";s:4:"Arts";s:8:"Business";s:8:"Business";s:14:"Communications";s:14:"Communications";s:16:"Criminal Justice";s:16:"Criminal Justice";s:13:"Culinary Arts";s:13:"Culinary Arts";s:9:"Education";s:9:"Education";s:11:"Engineering";s:11:"Engineering";s:11:"Health Care";s:11:"Health Care";s:22:"Information Technology";s:22:"Information Technology";s:13:"International";s:13:"International";s:5:"Legal";s:5:"Legal";s:17:"Political Science";s:17:"Political Science";s:10:"Psychology";s:10:"Psychology";s:8:"Religion";s:8:"Religion";s:7:"Science";s:7:"Science";s:9:"Technical";s:9:"Technical";s:10:"Veterinary";s:10:"Veterinary";}s:8:"order_no";s:1:"3";});
var_dump($array);

answered Aug 24, 2012 at 14:10

John Conde

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2 Comments

99823 Over a year ago

I updated my question - it looks like unserialize gets me closer but i'm still kinda confused on how to get it completely done - thanks so much

IMSoP Over a year ago

Now that it's unserialized, it's just an array - use foreach to loop over it and get out whatever information you need.

Pawna · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-24 14:51:17Z

1

$sample_arr = unserialize($array); //unserialize here
$sample_arr = $sample_arr['choices']; //get the array

then you have the category list saved to $sample_arr.

foreach($sample_arr as $temp) {
  //do stuff with each element here
}

Examples include outputting this as a html list

echo '<ul>';
foreach($sample_arr as $temp) {
  echo '<li>' . $temp . '</li>';
}
echo '</ul>';

answered Aug 24, 2012 at 14:51

Pawna

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