[drupal-devel] Storing arbitrary data for a user

[Steven Wittens]

Mark wrote:

> Dan Robinson wrote:
>
>> I have a small amount of persistant data I would like to associate 
>> with a user and would like to avoid creating a new table to store it 
>> in.  I have come across variable_get and variable_set - which is 
>> great - but probably not appropriate for what I'm doing.  I've also 
>> seen user->categories, but can't find any doco or info on what this is.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Dan
>
>
> Try the $user->data array.  You should be able to insert your user 
> data there.
>
> To see what's currently stored there (as serialized data):
>  select uid, name, data from users;

Custom $user fields will already be saved without modifying ->data 
directly. In fact, custom fields that do not go into data need to be 
unset explicitly in hook_user('save') to prevent this.

Steven Wittens