Title: Adding multiple select data to widget database
Last modified: August 20, 2016

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# Adding multiple select data to widget database

 *  [Allen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/amweiss98/)
 * (@amweiss98)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/adding-multiple-select-data-to-widget-database/)
 * I’m trying to what I thought was simple, namely use a select element in a form
   that allows for multiple selections, and add that information to a widget database.
   Here is the relevant code for the widget
 *     ```
       public function update( $new_instance, $old_instance ) {
       	$instance = array();
       	$instance['numoption[]'] = $new_instance['numoption[]'];
       	return $instance;
       }	
   
       	public function form( $instance ) {
   
       		$numoption =$instance['numoption[]'];
           ?>
       		<p>
       				<label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('numoption'); ?>"><?php _e('How many results displayed?'); ?></label>
       				<select name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('numoption[]'); ?>" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('numoption'); ?>" class="widefat" multiple="multiple">
       					<option value="1">1</option>
       						<option value="2">2</option>
       						<option value="3">3</option>
       						<option value="4">4</option>
       						<option value="5">5</option>
   
       						<?php
       						}
       ```
   
 * But here is what shows up in the database
    a:2:{i:4;a:1{s:11:”numoption[]”;N;}
   s:12:”_multiwidget”;i:1;}
 * Any ideas how to make this work properly so that if you choose multiple selections
   they go in the database table?
 * _[Moderator Note: Please post code or markup snippets between backticks or use
   the code button. Or better still – use the [pastebin](http://wordpress.pastebin.com/).
   As it stands, your code may now have been permanently damaged/corrupted by the
   forum’s parser.]_

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

 *  [michael.mariart](https://wordpress.org/support/users/michaelmariart/)
 * (@michaelmariart)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/adding-multiple-select-data-to-widget-database/#post-2998239)
 * This line is wrong:
 * `$instance['numoption[]'] = $new_instance['numoption[]'];`
 * It should be:
 * `$instance['numoption'] = $new_instance['numoption'];`
 * The [] after numoption is not valid. Removing that will give you the array that
   you want to get.
 * For now that’s all that I can see that stands out as not being correct. Just 
   remember that in order to store an array of values like this in the database,
   it needs to be ran thorugh seralize() which makes it look like you’ve given here
   so that’s completely normal.
 *  Thread Starter [Allen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/amweiss98/)
 * (@amweiss98)
 * [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/adding-multiple-select-data-to-widget-database/#post-2998252)
 * Thanks Michael…turns out the main issue was this line
 * name=”<?php echo $this->get_field_name(‘numoption[]’); ?>”
 * that needed to be this
 * name=”<?php echo $this->get_field_name(‘numoption’); ?>[]”
 * and yes, the instances I had were wrong..thanks for pointing this out.

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

The topic ‘Adding multiple select data to widget database’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [multiple select](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/multiple-select/)
 * [widget](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/widget/)

 * In: [Hacks](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/plugins-and-hacks/hacks/)
 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Allen](https://wordpress.org/support/users/amweiss98/)
 * Last activity: [13 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/adding-multiple-select-data-to-widget-database/#post-2998252)
 * Status: not resolved

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