Conditional PHP unserialize function - php

Question

First of all, I am sorry if this appears to be a silly question. I am new with this "unserialize" command and I have been reading much information here about it, but I still really don't know how to implement it to get what I need.
Let me explain what do I have now, and what do I need.
I have this code now:
$consultametacat = $wpdb->get_row("
SELECT post_id,
meta_key,
meta_value
FROM cg_postmeta
WHERE post_id = '".$consultapost->ID."'
AND meta_key LIKE '_category_permalink'
",
ARRAY_A
);
This saves the results of that query to the database in ARRAY_A
Then I get that value on other lines like these:
$category_color = get_tax_meta($consultametacat['meta_value'],'pm_color_field_id');
$category_name = get_term_by('id', $consultametacat['meta_value'], 'category',ARRAY_A);
$category_name = get_term_by('id', $consultametacat['meta_value'], 'category',ARRAY_A);
$category_link=get_category_link($consultametacat['meta_value']);
It worked good so far, as the meta_value was an integer number until two weeks ago. Now, old entries in "_category_permalink" field in the database has integer numbers, but new entries have serialized data like this:
a:1:{s:8:"category";s:2:"23";}
So, what I need to do is to put a condition and unserialize according to that condition, to always get an integer number. The logic will be like this:
-if the results for
$consultametacat = $wpdb->get_row("
SELECT post_id,
meta_key,
meta_value
FROM cg_postmeta
WHERE post_id = '".$consultapost->ID."'
AND meta_key
LIKE '_category_permalink'
",
ARRAY_A
);
is an integer number, then save that value normally. But if it results in a serialized line, then unserialize, get the numeric value (in my example, the 23 from the line a:1:{s:8:"category";s:2:"23";}) and save that numeric value.
How to achieve this?
Thank you very much for all your help in advance.

Answer 1

You have to detect first that your result is serialized and then take care of that, if not nothing more is to do:
if(strpos($consultametacat,':{')!==false){
$consultametacat = unserialize($consultametacat);
$consultametacat = array_shift($consultametacat);//or = $consultametacat['category'];
}
strpos() detects :{ in $consultametacat and returns his position and every serialized data has this part in it. But serialize() can also serialize objects and other types, so research for yourself a little more on that topic.