How to put an array to DB (php, pdo)? - php

Question

Need your help. Got some problems with putting an array's data to DB via php pdo. I'm amateur frond-end dev. that's quite far from backend, so there are no people except you to help me! In the DB table I've got some columns, among others "myActions" - need to put all the data from my inputs with the names name="action[]" to this column row by row.
In html code I have inputs' names like that:
<div id="field">
<input autocomplete="off" class="input form-control" id="field1" name="action[]" type="text" placeholder="Type something" data-items="8"/>
<button id="b1" class="btn add-more" type="button">+</button>
</div>
In php file :
<?php
$incident_number = $_POST['incident_number'];
$incident_type = $_POST['incident_type'];
$incident_subject = $_POST['incident_subject'];
$incident_time = $_POST['incident_time'];
$status = $_POST['status'];
$wasdone = $_POST['action'];
try {
/*** connect to SQLite database ***/
$dbh = new PDO("sqlite:myDB2");
/*** echo a message saying we have connected ***/
//echo 'Connected to database<br />';
/*** The SQL SELECT statement ***/
$Log = date(DATE_RFC2822)." Creation".PHP_EOL;
//echo $Log;
$sql = "INSERT INTO myData
(incident_number,incident_type,incident_subject,incident_time,status) values
(:incident_number,:incident_type,:incident_subject,:incident_time,:status);"
$query = $dbh->prepare($sql);
$query->bindParam(':incident_number', $incident_number);
$query->bindParam(':incident_type', $incident_type);
$query->bindParam(':incident_subject', $incident_subject);
$query->bindParam(':incident_time', $incident_time);
$query->bindParam(':status', $status);
//$query->bindParam(':Log', $Log, PDO::PARAM_STR);
$query->execute();
//$query->execute(array(':NameImp'=>$NameImp));
// Close file db connection
$dbh = null;
}
catch(PDOException $e)
{
echo $e->getMessage();
}
try {
/*** connect to SQLite database ***/
$dbh = new PDO("sqlite:myDB2");
/*** echo a message saying we have connected ***/
//echo 'Connected to database<br />';
/*** The SQL SELECT statement ***/
$Log = date(DATE_RFC2822)." Creation".PHP_EOL;
//echo $Log;
$sql = "INSERT INTO myActions (action) values (:wasdone);";
foreach ($wasdone as $key => &$value) { //pass $value as a reference to the array item
$query->bindParam($key, $value); // bind the variable to the statement
}
//$query->bindParam(':Log', $Log, PDO::PARAM_STR);
$query->execute();
//$query->execute(array(':NameImp'=>$NameImp));
// Close file db connection
$dbh = null;
}
catch(PDOException $e)
{
echo $e->getMessage();
}
?>

Answer 1

You could use PHP's implode() function which joins the elements of an array into a single string, delimited by a custom substring.
You can later use explode() to turn your string back into a workable array when you query it from the database.
Note: while this is a quick solution that could work for your use case, if the arrays in the dataset become too large or your project increases in complexity, you should look into data normalization and make additional tables for your actions array elements as good data management practice.