Make WordPress Core

Changes between Version 44 and Version 45 of Ticket #55942


Ignore:
Timestamp:
04/27/2023 10:39:04 AM (22 months ago)
Author:
spacedmonkey
Comment:

I would strongly recommend using register_meta/register_setting here. This requires developers to opt-in to this functionality and we can even add a new parameter to other, like strict typing, that forces typing.

Changing the database schema for post meta, user meta, term meta, comment meta, site meta, network options and options, is a large database change. I will likely break lots of migration scripts and even plugins like woocommence do raw database queries on the meta tables.

I do like the idea of the ticket, skipping serialize could be a massive win.

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  • Ticket #55942

    • Property Component changed from Options, Meta APIs to Database
    • Property Summary changed from Add a "value type" parameter to get_option() and get_metadata() to Add a "type" field to the meta and options tables
  • Ticket #55942 – Description

    v44 v45  
    1 Update: This ticket had to be somewhat repurposed as it became clear that with the initial approach there's no good way to ensure full backwards compatibility in `get_option()` and `get_metadata()`.
     1The idea to add a `type` or `format` field to all meta and options tables is not new, has been "floating around" for years. The general idea it that if some data is (automatically) serialized before saving to the DB, it will be (automatically) unserialized after retrieving it based on the value of the new field. This will make the `maybe_unserialize()` and `is_serialized()` functions pretty much redundant when retrieving data from these tables. It will also improve the performance and stability.
    22
    3 The initial idea to support "strict" types of the options and meta values remains the same, but the implementation has changed. The new approach is to add another parameter to the above functions. This would ensure 100% backwards compatibility and at the same time will provide approximately the same benefits:
    4 
    5 - Consistent types of the return values from `get_option()`, `get_metadata()`.
    6 - Reduced use of `maybe_unserialize()` and `is_serialized()`.
    7 
    8 The main differences are that the new approach is opt-in and doesn't require new table columns.
     3The new field can be very small. Seems that a `TINYINT` (requires only 1 byte of storage) would work there. Can also be something like `VARCHAR(20)` that may eventually prove more useful in the future, but perhaps the increase in size would not be worth it.