[drupal-devel] Storing arbitrary data for a user

[Dan Robinson]

Steven Wittens wrote:

> 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.

I'm kind of getting this, but not quite.  How do I declare a customer 
$user field?  I'm already using the hook_user stuff so I know "when" to 
do it, but I still don't know where to put this data.

Thanks,

Dan

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