Select/update problem

[Yoda]

I have a problem with a custom build admin section I've made for a client (php, mysql).

They are taking orders over the internet for products, but they are not using a gateway. They are charging manually.

So I set up an interface so that they could connect using https, and using the very lovely @ css feature, this allows printing of orders in a secure manner - the card number is only stored until the order is printed. The unprinted orders are found from the db, and then passed in the url to an iframe. Some dhtml is there to print the iframe, and upon confirmation of successful printing, the orders are marked as printed, and the card details wiped.

However, this isn't that scalable, as they are growing, and it will get bigger. However, it was the best I could come up with at the time. When they have 50-120 orders there to print, the url being passed is going to be huge.

But I can't use sessions, as the iframe doesn't see them. Of course, simply printing unprinted orders, and then marking them all printed without using a defined set is bad, as any new orders in after printing can be marked printed, and the credit card number lost.

Can anyone help with a better solution? At the moment, it looks as if I might have to write to a tmp file or something.

[MrAlaska]

Building the best fitting ecommerce solution is challenging at best, but building a site that depends on client side variables for functionality is asking for trouble in my opinion. In this case the client not only needs to have javascript and css enabled, they need to be using a browser that supports Iframes. I do not know the percentages of users you are shutting out, but it is needless to lose one of them.

DHTML can greatly enhance the presentation layer, Javascript can reduce a signifigant amount of processing on the server side by pre-validating fields, and Iframes might have their day someday. For functionality, though, I would keep it all on the server side.