Arrays and when they should be used

[cliftonbazaar]

My program is using several arrays (have over a thousand variables so arrays are a must).

 

At the moment I am simply exploding the arrays when needed and then imploding them if they need to be saved.

 

This morning I was thinking that maybe I should put each array into its own $_SESSION at the start of the program so I don't have to keep imploding and exploding them, except imploding them in order to save any changes.

 

Is there much difference in these two methods in the way it effects the server?

[.josh]

I have to wonder why you need to have thousands of variables in memory in the first place, and if the more appropriate solution would be to rethink your system to not have so much data on-hand at once...

[Ken2k7]

Why can't you store those values in the database?

[cliftonbazaar]

Didn't explain that properly then - all the variables (including arrays) are in a database, I implode and explode arrays that are in the database.

[Philip]

But like CV said, is it really needed to have all of those variables, or could you just select what you needed (maybe a few at a time)?

[Ken2k7]

I have a question, what would exploding an array do? Wouldn't it just give you back the same array? ???

[Philip]

Well, if you save a string in the DB like:

"one, two, three" - explode that would get you an array ( 0 => "one", 1 => "two", 2 => "three") then implode that into something like "one - two - three"

 

don't ask why I'd do something like that, but it's possible somebody would want to.

[Ken2k7]

I think you misread my question. What would exploding and array do?

 

<?php
$e = array('one', 'two', 'three');
$k = explode('???', $e);
var_dump($k);

 

???

[.josh]

I'm sure he meant exploding a string into an array and imploding back into a string.  But I'm sure you knew that, and you're just being an ass.  Stop it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's my job.

[Philip]

Well, if you save a string in the DB like:

"one, two, three" - explode that would get you an array...

 

"one, two, three" would be from one value in the db.

[Ken2k7]

Crayon Violent - I actually wanted to know what exploding an array would do. In my tests, they just come back as the original array. I would think PHP would give me an error, but it doesn't. ???

[.josh]

Crayon Violent - I actually wanted to know what exploding an array would do. In my tests, they just come back as the original array. I would think PHP would give me an error, but it doesn't. ???

 

er.. well when you try to explode an array, for instance:

 

$x = range('a','z');
$y = explode(' ',$x);

 

explode evaluates it as a string of value "Array" and explodes the string based on the delimiter.

[Philip]

You will get a notice warning:

 

Notice: Array to string conversion in /path/test.php on line #

[.josh]

ah i don't have notices turned on.  I got

 

Array ( [0] => Array )

 

from ^^

[cliftonbazaar]

Exploding an array allows you to put a value from a database into an array of values.

 

For example if the database value is {Human, fighter, strong}

then it could be exploded to

abilities[0] = human

abilities[1] = fighter

abilities[2] = strong

 

this helps in putting variables together in values that are needed on the one page and not having to have a thousand differant fields in a database.

For me this system works fine, I'm just worried about putting strain on the server.

 

Note that this is just a simple example, the reality is that the values are a lot bigger.