Programming – WordPress dev array user meta

Playing around on local server, working on new user meta functions. This one is an ip history array, idea is something like xenforo uses to show a list of all ip’s of any user. I am using the built in WP user_meta functions and storing in user meta, something I typically never use. With this function you can show the admin or user the list, use for admin only functions, set a limit on ips stored and it removes the oldest entry aka array_shift(). For my test code it’s using raw ip’s that are not anonymized but production would be.

Nothing super complicated but I am new with using update and get user_meta, in vanilla PHP so use to writing my own CRUD functions. Some small things made a big difference. I like the easy peasy stuff.

/* 
Setting the last parameter to true makes WP store 
your array as single array for your use in database for my_meta_name 
a:2:{i:0;s:5:"DATA1";i:1;s:5:"DATA2";} otherwise it will create arrays 
inside arrays which could be useful for other functions. 
For my function it only stores an ip string so a single array is ok, 
but later I may change it to do ip => date etc.
*/

/*
 a:2 array items
 i:0 index of item
 s:5 size of item, 5 bytes or characters in this case
 :"data"
*/

$data = get_user_meta(get_current_user_id(), 'my_meta_name', true);

// For adding data update_user_meta()

update_user_meta(get_current_user_id(), 'my_meta_name', $mydata);

/* $mydata is a newly modified array that has been compared, edited, counted, then finally used as new value to be updated.
    There is another function add_user_meta(), but update creates the entry if it does not exists annnnnd just updates if it does,
    so I did not need the add.
*/