Title: Database structure: Serialization everywhere?????
Last modified: August 20, 2016

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# Database structure: Serialization everywhere?????

 *  [kabelmi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kabelmi/)
 * (@kabelmi)
 * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-structure-serialization-everywhere/)
 * Dear developers,
 * so I do use WordPress because my boss like how it has good support for plugins
   and themes and how simple it is to work with it (for him), but guys, really? 
   For Creator’s sake, storing list of active plugins in a serialized array in wp_options
   table??? Are you kidding me? The possibility to create tables with columns and
   rows in a database (do you understand that word?) isn’t there for you to laugh
   at it! I am one second from spilling every naughty word I know here!
 * Plusins list? `{plugin_identification, blah blah blha, active - boolean}`
 * Plugin settings? Well, watch this: `{plugin_identification, setting_name, setting_value)
   with primary key (plugin_identification, setting_name}`
 * You’re using serialization in absoluteny improper places, really, for me it seems
   like you needed something a looong time ago and you were too lazy to create a
   sensemaking database structure for it, so you just serialized it everything and
   now people who are solving broken upgrades can loose their mind.
 * Yours serialized,
    Mind Blown Up

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Moderator [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/)
 * (@ipstenu)
 * 🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist
 * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-structure-serialization-everywhere/#post-2636029)
 * Normally the serialization isn’t a problem when debugging a bad upgrade.
 * Should I guess that you’re trying to copy a DB locally to fix and upload again?
 *  Thread Starter [kabelmi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kabelmi/)
 * (@kabelmi)
 * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-structure-serialization-everywhere/#post-2636033)
 * I am sorry, I did not mark this topic as ‘not a support question’ like it should
   have been. This is not a bug report, I successfully solved my problem. I just
   wrote this because by solving it I nearly lost my mind. The structure of a database
   is bad when you need to store serialized data which can be broken after an upgrade.
 *  Moderator [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/)
 * (@ipstenu)
 * 🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist
 * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-structure-serialization-everywhere/#post-2636120)
 * Ah, s’all right 🙂
 * Most of the time, there are no issues with the serialization (which is to say
   in the last 5 years, I can remember one time it went kaboom, and that was with
   Multisite which is a lot snippier).

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘Database structure: Serialization everywhere?????’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [database structure](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/database-structure/)
 * [serialization](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/serialization/)

 * In: [Requests and Feedback](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/requests-and-feedback/)
 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/)
 * Last activity: [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-structure-serialization-everywhere/#post-2636120)
 * Status: not a support question

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