Title: Making a two-sided database
Last modified: August 21, 2016

---

# Making a two-sided database

 *  [Boris K](https://wordpress.org/support/users/boris-k/)
 * (@boris-k)
 * [12 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/making-a-two-sided-database/)
 * Hi, guys. I’m trying to make a site for employers and workers to register and
   be able to find each other. I’m running the site on my local server in WAMP right
   now.
 * I have built the registration forms using the Ninja Forms plugin, and am now 
   trying to set up a search function loop, where a MySQL query is formulated based
   on whether the user is looking for workers or employers, and is logged on or 
   not, then the output is displayed in a table.
 * I know how to do all this in vanilla procedural PHP/MySQL, but am new to WordPress
   and don’t know where to begin here.
 * I’ve found the table that the forms save data to in PHP MyAdmin, and all the 
   user data from each registration is dumped into one field of a new row as an 
   array. For instance, here are entries for an employer and employee.
 * Employer:
 * ‘a:13:{i:0;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:1;s:10:”user_value”;s:3:”Bob”;}i:1;a:2:{s:8:”
   field_id”;i:2;s:10:”user_value”;s:5:”Jones”;}i:2;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:3;s:10:”
   user_value”;s:10:”1 Jones St”;}i:3;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:4;s:10:”user_value”;
   s:10:”Jonesville”;}i:4;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:5;s:10:”user_value”;s:5:”99191″;}
   i:5;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:6;s:10:”user_value”;s:2:”US”;}i:6;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;
   i:7;s:10:”user_value”;s:21:”bobjones@fakemail.com”;}i:7;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:
   9;s:10:”user_value”;s:14:”(555) 555-5555″;}i:8;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:11;s:10:”
   user_value”;s:10:”11/11/1911″;}i:9;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:12;s:10:”user_value”;
   s:2:”AF”;}i:10;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:13;s:10:”user_value”;s:2:”na”;}i:11;a:2:{
   s:8:”field_id”;i:28;s:10:”user_value”;s:6:”Center”;}i:12;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;
   i:29;s:10:”user_value”;s:1:”5″;}}
 * Employee:
 * a:13:{i:0;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:1;s:10:”user_value”;s:3:”Bob”;}i:1;a:2:{s:8:”
   field_id”;i:2;s:10:”user_value”;s:5:”Jones”;}i:2;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:3;s:10:”
   user_value”;s:10:”1 Jones St”;}i:3;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:4;s:10:”user_value”;
   s:10:”Jonesville”;}i:4;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:5;s:10:”user_value”;s:5:”99191″;}
   i:5;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:6;s:10:”user_value”;s:2:”US”;}i:6;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;
   i:7;s:10:”user_value”;s:21:”bobjones@fakemail.com”;}i:7;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:
   9;s:10:”user_value”;s:14:”(555) 555-5555″;}i:8;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:11;s:10:”
   user_value”;s:10:”11/11/1911″;}i:9;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:12;s:10:”user_value”;
   s:2:”AF”;}i:10;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;i:13;s:10:”user_value”;s:2:”na”;}i:11;a:2:{
   s:8:”field_id”;i:28;s:10:”user_value”;s:6:”Center”;}i:12;a:2:{s:8:”field_id”;
   i:29;s:10:”user_value”;s:1:”5″;}}
 * I guess I could make the registration all on one page, and just let the user 
   pick whether they are an employee or employer in the first form, then set up 
   a PHP function to query the DB, loop through the output, and for each array that
   is returned where the first element is of the proper type, loop through the rest
   of it, outputting it as a table. This seems a bit…loopy, though. Perhaps there
   is a better free plugin that lets me make forms and directly determine which 
   table and field they post to?
 * Also, how do I even access the source code for something like this? I tried to
   do so in the Appearance-Editor on cPanel, but no joy.
 * Thanks for your help,
 * Boris

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

 *  [vtxyzzy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/vtxyzzy/)
 * (@vtxyzzy)
 * [12 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/making-a-two-sided-database/#post-4160664)
 * Is the problem that you don’t know how to split the data out from the single 
   field, or that there is no way to distinguish employee from employer?
 * The data is ‘serialized’. You use the unserialize() function to extract it back
   into an array, like this:
 *     ```
       $data = unserialize($your_field_name);
       ```
   
 *  Thread Starter [Boris K](https://wordpress.org/support/users/boris-k/)
 * (@boris-k)
 * [12 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/making-a-two-sided-database/#post-4160669)
 * Got it, thanks.
 * There is also no real way to distinguish employee from employer, since NinjaForms
   sticks ALL form data into the same table in the same format. Of course, I could
   have the user choose whether they are an employee or employer in a pull-down 
   menu up top, then write a function to query the database and spit out employee
   or employer data based on the searching user’s preference, but it seems like 
   an ugly way of doing things. I should be able to go into the NinjaForms plugin
   and edit it to save user input into different tables based on the page it’s coming
   from, right?
 *  [vtxyzzy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/vtxyzzy/)
 * (@vtxyzzy)
 * [12 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/making-a-two-sided-database/#post-4160670)
 * If you have two separate forms, you could add a hidden field to each with the
   value of ‘Employer’ or ‘Employee’ as appropriate.
 * Then set your query with a ‘where’ clause:
 *     ```
       $sql = "SELECT * FROM {$wpdb->prefix}ninja_forms_subs WHERE data LIKE '%Employer%'";
       $results = $wpdb->get_results($sql);;
       ```
   

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

The topic ‘Making a two-sided database’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [database](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/database/)
 * [forms](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/forms/)
 * [loops](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/loops/)
 * [MySQL](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/mysql/)
 * [php](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/php/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [vtxyzzy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/vtxyzzy/)
 * Last activity: [12 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/making-a-two-sided-database/#post-4160670)
 * Status: not resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics