Unserialize query (array) data is not working - php

Question

I gave recently created a search function with checkboxes that queries for the submitted checkbox values and returns those values into a table.
The problem however is that certain of the checkbox values (in the database) are serialized. When i display the query result variable in a foreach for every checkbox value, it returns serialized characters. Obviously i want to just show the string without the weird characters.
The original piece of code, where the entire serialized characters are returned was as follows:
if(count($tmp)>0){
for($i=0;$i<count($tmp);$i++){
echo "<tr>";
foreach($tmp[$i] as $key=>$value){
echo"<td>" . $value . "</td>";
}
echo "</tr>";
}
}
echo '</table>';
So to just display the string of the database value i try'd to use the unserialize function (the $tmp is by the way the variable in which the query results are being stored). There were however several issues with this, namely:
echo doesnt work with unserialize
the database and query can also return non-serialized data (so the $tmp variable can contain a. serialized values with the weird characters and b. just a non-serialized normal string).
Because the unserialize function also gets the 'normal' strings, those normals trings will be outputted as blanks..
For some reason, the output of the arrays/unserialized data (with print_r) displays not the string but rather the entire array name, like this: Array ( [0] => [1] => Netherlands ).
The code below is how i try'd to unserialize the data:
if(count($tmp)>0){
for($i=0;$i<count($tmp);$i++){
echo "<tr>";
foreach($tmp[$i] as $key=>$value){
echo "<td>";
$b=unserialize($value);
print_r($b);
echo "</td>";
}
echo "</tr>";
}
}
echo '</table>';
Though, like said before, the above code shows the entire array name and the 'normal' strings of the database that are also queried are displayed as blanks.
So what to do to get this fixed?
Thank you in advance

Answer 1

Php unserialize can return several things including an array which is your case. Do this
foreach($tmp[$i] as $key=>$value){
echo "<td>";
$b=unserialize($value);
if(is_array($b)){
//this assumes your array is always like this Array ( [0] => [1] => Netherlands )
echo $b[1];
}
else{
echo $value;
}
echo "</td>";
}