I'm trying to understand what this is in the signup module. In the signup_log database it looks like this:
a:2:{s:4:"Name";s:6:"brenda";s:5:"Phone";s:10:"5555551234";}
Brenda Boggs Abtech Creative bboggs@abtechcreative.com
a:2:{s:4:"Name";s:6:"brenda";s:5:"Phone";s:10:"5555551234";}
That is what is called "serialized" data, generated by serialize(). More documentation at http://us2.php.net/serialize (read the comments for a more verbose explanation). The above is equivalent to this PHP code:
array('Name' => 'brenda', 'Phone' => '5555551234');
only in a database-friendly format.