Storing arrays in the database

Question

I\'m wondering if it is actually good practise to store Arrays in the database ? I tend to use json_encode rather than serialize, but was just wond

Answer 1

Depends on your usage pattern. If you're going to need to access smaller portions of the array (e.g. for use in a where clause or similar), then it's a bad idea - you lose all the benefits of storing data in a relational database by making the data un-relatable. You'll end up with major overhead extracting that small piece of data over and over and over again.

On the other hand, if you're just using the database as a data store and never need to slice that stored array apart - just insert and retrieve, then there's probably no problem at all, other than maybe waste of space, as a serialized/json'd format tends to be "wordy" and take up more space than the raw data itself does.