Title: Store Multiselect as String rather than Array?
Last modified: August 21, 2016

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# Store Multiselect as String rather than Array?

 *  Resolved [litterati](https://wordpress.org/support/users/litterati/)
 * (@litterati)
 * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/store-multiselect-as-string-rather-than-array/)
 * I have a multiselect that has options A B C and D that I would like to store 
   as a string in a single column: A,B,D for example. But I think the multiselect
   option stores information as an array, which complicates the search form we have
   already been using.
 * Is it possible to have the multiselect checkbox values be stored as a single 
   string? Possibly separated by commas?
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/participants-database/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/participants-database/)

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  Plugin Author [xnau webdesign](https://wordpress.org/support/users/xnau/)
 * (@xnau)
 * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/store-multiselect-as-string-rather-than-array/#post-4754720)
 * The multiselect data is actually stored as a string, but it’s a serialized array.
   As long as your search term includes wildcards before and after, it will work.
   Another approach is to look for a search term that is enclosed in double quotes.
 *  Thread Starter [litterati](https://wordpress.org/support/users/litterati/)
 * (@litterati)
 * [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/store-multiselect-as-string-rather-than-array/#post-4754779)
 * Thank you!
 * That’s just the clue I needed. I was able to use this old form (for the format)
   with PDB and use `unserialize` along with `implode` to display the values as 
   plain text like I needed.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

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## Tags

 * [array](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/array/)
 * [multiselect](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/multiselect/)
 * [string](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/string/)

 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [litterati](https://wordpress.org/support/users/litterati/)
 * Last activity: [12 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/store-multiselect-as-string-rather-than-array/#post-4754779)
 * Status: resolved