[wp-hackers] Best practices for upgrading plugin options?

[Otto]

On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Steve Bruner [SlipFire]
<sbruner at slipfire.com> wrote:
> The user chooses to delete the default text from their options,  so
> "setting1" doesn't exist in the array anymore.

Instead of removing setting1 from the array, you should leave it in
the array as a blank string.

"Defaults" are *default*. That's what gets used when no entry exists.
If they've specified something other than the default, even a blank
string, then you should be storing it as what they are specifying,
even if it's a blank string.

> The user now upgrades to v2.0 of our plugin.  It has some more settings, and
> I use wp_parse_args to merge the options.  Since "setting1" is empty, won't
> wp_parse_args add the default text to the array? If yes, then this is the
> issue since the user removed the default text.  This also happens when check
> boxes are checked on default, and then unchecked by user.

Ditto for checkboxes. You should be storing them as a boolean true or
false, and saving the false condition instead of deleting it from the
options array.

-Otto