Support › MB Frontend Submission › cloneable groups - json vs serialized string
- This topic has 3 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 1 month, 3 weeks ago by
Peter.
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March 9, 2024 at 9:18 PM #44780
Nicholas Cox
ParticipantHi
For saving cloneable group form data you save the value in the database column as a serialized string, but upon reading about this subject it seems most people are opting to use 'json' to store the data inside one column. This allows the use of 'JSON_EXTRACT'. Is there any reason you dont use json over serialized strings?
thanks
Nick
March 10, 2024 at 10:47 PM #44790Peter
ModeratorHello Nick,
WordPress itself saves the array to the database as a serialized string and our plugin works with that standard feature. There are some benefits noted in the documentation https://docs.metabox.io/cloning-fields/#data-of-cloneable-fields
- Works for all field types, including nested groups.
- Works perfectly with the helper function or with WordPress's get_post_meta function (WordPress automatically deserializes string and returns an array).
- Reduces the database size (number of rows), especially when you have nested groups of many fields.March 10, 2024 at 10:51 PM #44791ParticipantHi Peter
ok thanks for the explanation, i checked out the link https://docs.metabox.io/cloning-fields/#data-of-cloneable-fields and i can see that the 'Clone as multiple' option is ideal for posts/pages but does not work for custom tables and models.
So if i was to query serialized values using wpdb and custgom tables, then how would i query values within this?
March 11, 2024 at 9:33 PM #44802ModeratorHello,
If the value is serialized in the database, like group field, it is difficult to query posts by a subfield value. You can use an SQL query or a third-party plugin to do that. Please follow the documentation
https://metabox.io/create-group-of-custom-fields-with-meta-box-group/#how-does-the-meta-box-group-save-data
https://docs.metabox.io/extensions/mb-custom-table/#query-posts-with-wp_query -
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