Multiple User-Meta Values in One User-Meta Key

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Currently, I am adding user metadata with the key position_name and a string value representing a user’s position, such that I can retrieve a user’s position by way of a call similar to:

$position = get_user_meta(22, 'position_name', true);

This works perfectly for one position per user, but I’d like to be able to associate each user with several positions. Would adding a serialized array within the position_name field be an appropriate way of achieving this?

I hope that makes sense..

1 Answer
1

If you check out the documentation for the update_user_meta() function, you’ll note that the $meta_value parameter already accepts objects and arrays, so you can simply save a user’s positions in an array without any additional effort:

update_user_meta(
    22,
    'position_names',
    array(
        'Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea',
        'Breaker of Chains',
        'Mother of Dragons'
    )
);

The user meta functions already take care of serializing and unserializing the array for you (converting it to and from a string, respectively). Note that the documentation for get_user_meta() specifies that the last parameter $single denotes whether to just return one meta-value directly, or return all values in an array. You’re looking to get all of the position_names, so you should pass false as $single or omit the argument entirely (in which case it will default to false):

$position_names = get_user_meta( 22, 'position_names' );

//$position_names[0] === 'Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea'
//$position_names[1] === 'Breaker of Chains'
//$position_names[2] === 'Mother of Dragons'

Note

If you use update_user_meta() in the future to store an object (or an associative array), know that you may run into bug #9640

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