I am trying to insert values from a multi select drop down in a form to a mysql db column. For example: The drop down would have one or more choices chosen then when the form is posted it would insert the data into one column in a mysql db. I'm stuck at how to insert the data.
A couple of things to think about:
If there is a one to many relationship - it shouldn't be in one column, look into multiple tables and changing your database structure.
If you really want to pass in an array you will need to convert it to string using the php built in function implode, then using the built in function explode to retrieve the column from the db
$arr = array('val1','val2');
$string = implode(',',$arr);
//Do db insert
//Do db retrieve
$arr = explode(',',$string);
you can turn the array into a single string with http://us1.php.net/function.implode
$comma_separated = implode(",", $array);
If you want to insert in single row then you can use implode() to generate comma separated data, or you can do json_encode() and add to your colum.
Say you get the data as
$data = array("one", "two", "tree");
// output one, two, three
$insert_data = implode(",", $data);
or
$insert_data = json_encode($data);
Thats for inserting data in single column. While retrieving you can do explode() or json_decode() to get the return data and can use them in the multi-select again.
If you want one row for each item then just loop through the array and add them
set the type of the column to string, then use the function serialize($array) to convert the array into a string. When you want to get the string back to an array, use unserialize($string)