README

Provide a global function for ensuring metadata output is a string, and potentially fixing it if not.

This is useful for situations where you are expecting a string, and only a string, and an accidental array return would break things. An example might be a webservices response that requires a string.

This is a workaround for Elgg/Elgg#4268 where frequently updated metadata can accidentally duplicate into an array. This function ensures a scalar return for the metadata value and will reset the entity metadata to a scalar value by default.

Caveats

This works for metadata that does not depend on access or ownership, as a simple key/value pair (eg. most metadata usage) If the metadata does depend on access or ownership do not use this function on it or you will surely lose data.

Usage

Scenario:

$entity->country = [
    'canada',
    'canada
];

$entity->country is now:

Array
(
    [0] => canada
    [1] => canada
)

Without fixing: \Beck24\scalarmd($entity, 'country', false)

canada

$entity->country is still:

Array
(
    [0] => canada
    [1] => canada
)

Now with fixing: \Beck24\scalarmd($entity, 'country')

canada

$entity->country is now:

canada