How to store an array in a database column - php

Question

I have been trying to store an array in a database column, but haven't succeeded yet.
I have been looking into php and sql for two weeks now, and I don't have a programming background. So please forgive my ignorance. I'm sure I've made lot's of mistakes.
Let me explain my situation further.
I created a web page so a admin can fill in some data concerning some game. This is after a login process.
When a admin arrives at this point, I'm not bothering with 'correct' input at the moment. I just want to get the data in the db.
I created a table called games with mysql, and filled it with data I have so far:
+--------+--------+-----+-----+------+------+------+
|game_id |round_id|team1|team2|score1|score2|result|
+--------+--------+-----+-----+------+------+------+
| 1 | 1 | A | B | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| 2 | 1 | C | D | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| 3 | 1 | E | F | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| 4 | 2 | E | C | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| 5 | 2 | A | D | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| 6 | 2 | F | B | NULL | NULL | NULL |
+--------+--------+-----+-----+------+------+------+
Then I created a form in a php page which uses data from this table to display the teams per game.
The admin uses this form to fill in the game score and results. See the form below.This form is also needed to store values in the above table.
input.php
<?php
mysql_connect("xxx", "xxx", "xxx") or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db("xxx") or die(mysql_error());
$query="SELECT games_team1, games_team2 FROM games WHERE round_id = 1";
$result = mysql_query($query);
?>
<form action="someform.php" method="post">
<table id="inputgameresults">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Home</th>
<th>Score 1</th>
<th>-</th>
<th>Score 2</th>
<th>Away</th>
<th>Result</th>
</tr>
<?php while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) { ?>
<tr>
<td><?php echo $row['team1']; ?></td>
<td><input type="text" name="score1[]"/></td>
<td> - </td>
<td><input type="text" name="score2[]"/></td>
<td><?php echo $row['team2']; ?></td>
<td><input type="text" name="result[]"/></td>
</tr>
<?php } ?>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td</td>
<td</td>
<td</td>
<td</td>
<td><input type="submit" value="Submit"/></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</form>
This results into 3 rows in the table in the form above. This table displays the teams for each match and input fields for the scores and the result.
A header, three rows with the games, input fields behind the games, and a sumbit button below.
A admin can submit the input with the form below. I added the echo so I can check if the output is correct. The echo works like a charm.
This is where things don't go the way I'd like them to go. The sql query I used is stated in the form. It fails miserably, probably because of my lack of knowledge.
form1.php
<?php
mysql_connect("xxx", "xxx", "xxx") or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db("xxx") or die(mysql_error());
$sc1 = $_POST['score1'];
$sc2 = $_POST['score2'];
$res = $_POST['result'];
foreach($sc1 as $value) {
echo "score team 1 $value<br/>";
mysql_query("UPDATE games SET game_score1 = '".$value[]"' WHERE games_id = [1,2,3] ");
}
foreach($sc2 as $value) {
echo "score team 2$value<br/>";
}
foreach($res as $value) {
echo "res $value<br/>";
}
?>
I'm sure there are a lot things besides the main issue I can improve, or do more efficient. Although this is not my main focus at the moment, any help is welcome :D
The main focus now is to get the input from the form in the right place in the db. The data from the form needs to be send to the database in columns score1, score2 and result for a game.
Any help or advice is most welcome!

Answer 1

a simple way to store a whole array in a database column is to encode the array to json ... in the example, $sc1 is the array you want to store
mysql_query("UPDATE games SET game_score1 = '". json_encode($sc1) . "' WHERE
games_id = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] ");
then when you get your array from the colomnu, it is still on json format, so you need to do this
$array = json_decode($result);
sometimes your array contains elemens with '' all you need to do is to use
addslashes(json_encode($sc1))
instead of using
json_encode($sc1);

Answer 2

It looks like you just need the syntax to insert a new row to mysql. If game_id increments automatically, you don't have to specify it in the statment:
INSERT games (round_id, team1, team2, score1, score2, result)
VALUES (3, 4, 6, 18, 1, 0, 1);

Answer 3

In advance, thank you guys for the possible solutions to my problem. I'm definately gonna look into them.
A friend of mine told me that I should use a 'key' so that it would be able to loop in the database. Kinda like when the data was retreived from the database. This seemed to work.
I used a $key++ so it would start at the first games_id.
foreach($sc1 as $key => $value) {
$key++;
mysql_query("UPDATE games SET game_score1 = '".$value[]"' WHERE games_id = '".$key."' ");
}
My next challenge is to retreive per round_id and also store per round_id.
And to make it more interesting, the current date is gonna point to the current round_id :D