Directly editing WP database issues

Question

I've been struggling with this for a long time and would appreciate some help.

I would like to change a value inside WP database using phpmyadmin. Sadly, this change seems to corrupt the database (some things do not work anymore) when the field value has a specific form. I explain:

I want to change a value inside options table, where option_value has the following form:

a:29:{s:9:"recaptcha";a:4:{s:8:"_builtin";i:1;s:7:"sitekey";s:0:"";s:4:"type";s:9:"recaptcha";s:5:"label";s:9:"reCAPTCHA";}s:9:"instagram";a:3:{s:8:"_builtin";i:1;s:4:"type";s:4:"text";s:5:"label";s:14:"Instagram
............

When changing something the site does not work properly (basically I want to change some hardcoded strings for translation reasons).

It seems to me the newlines are the problem but I do not know how to edit without inserting them.

To be more detailed. If for example I export the database and then import the SQL file it works fine. But, if I open this sql file, do NOT change anything and save it again and import, the problem occurs.

Answer 1

The data is serialized. You can try an online editor like this one (just use JSON), otherwise you can do it with a little PHP:

$data = unserialize( $your_serialized_data );
$data['this'] = 'that';

echo serialize( $data );