hook_civicrm_custom doesn't support is_multiple

[JohnFF]

When using custom data with checkbox fields and calling the checkbox hook, I found that what was being returned in the params was a concatenation of the values of the field. So if options included work and resident, ticking both meant that "workresident" was returned.

I couldn't find a mention of this in JIRA. Is this a known issue, and are there any workarounds (other than by doing an API call, which feels a tad hacky).

Thanks!

[JonGold]

I'm not claiming this IS what's happening - but I know that the default "separation character" (defined in civicrm.settings.php I believe) is HEX 0x01, which is a non-printable control character.  So it's often the case that when viewing the output, there's actually a separation character, but it's not printed, so it looks like there's none.  So it may be possible that hook_civicrm_custom is returning multiple values that must be explode()'d by HEX 0x01? 

[totten]

There's a pair of helper functions -- CRM_Utils_Array::explodePadded($string) and CRM_Utils_Array::implodePadded($array) -- which will convert between the delimited-string (with hex 0x01) and an array.

[JohnFF]

Thanks for the responses guys!

Totten esp, those functions just saved my contract

[Coleman Watts]

Yea and IMO those functions should never even exist (or not as public functions that anyone would ever need to use). If our DAO had been a bit more forward-thinking when it was written the developer would never have to deal with the method of serialization and would simply see arrays coming to and from the DAO (and therefore the api).

This is something I seriously want to have happen for our next api and our next generation DAO (aka Doctrine).