I'm looking to save some data in the Magento database without hassling with creating a new EAV object (or even a DB table if I can avoid it). Is there any place that you all know about that Magento will let you store serialized data?
If it matters, the data is a serialized set of SKUs that I need to retrieve. I know that I could create a new model, or possibly even create an attribute as a flag on each product, but those are both really overkill for my purposes.
Thanks, Joe
First, it's possible to setup a simple, non-EAV model with Magento. You still need to do some configuration and setup, but it's much less complicated than a full on EAV store.
Second, if you're storing information specific to users you can throw it in a session object. I can't recall the syntax right now (will update later), but search through your codebsae for ::getModel followed by the phrase "session".
Third, you still have access to all the old PHP tools you'd normally have. Writing/reading out of a file or memcached space (or bringing in a third party Model library) is another option.
If you just want to run some database queries directly then you can do so with the underlying Zend Db abstractions.