Newbie Issue - Sessions??

[harvillo]

I have a dilemma that I have researched and am stuck due to my lack of php acumen. I display records from a mysql DB..that's great no problems. I'd like for a user to be able to select individual records with a button which adds them to what I think would be a session variable. After going through and adding these records to be able to view the total selected records in somewhat of a checkout page to send the selected items via form. It's similar to an "add to cart" and checkout although I'm not dealing with products or totals...just a value. Any pointers on where to look would be a big help, I've gone through several cart examples and they have added functionality I don't require-I felt a session array was then answer but am not sure how to update this array via the return from MySQL.

Brief example of my return from mysql, I'd like for the user to be able to say "add to request" and be able to continue adding fruit and then sending the selected items via a form:

Fruit[]=apple

//iteration

Fruit[] =banana

[barand]

At the beginning of your code call [man]session_start[/man]

This will make available any session variables.

To create a session variable you must register it.
session_register("myvar") registers $myvar.

Note you register a string with the name of the variable and not the variable itself.

Access the variable with $myvar = $_SESSION["myvar"];

hth

[bretticus]

I don't know of any code out there right now to send you too, but judging from what I've read (if I've interpreted it correctly), this is probably fairly simple to do from scratch. I'll also assume that the user will be browsing through multiple page loads seeking out records.

If you're only concerned about the values of whatever the person has selected, and if these values are individual records in your database table, the following should be easy to implement:

Write out all your records with checkboxes next to them where the input name is the same (make sure to use the []s -- i.e. <input type='checkbox' name='fruits[]' value='1'>) and the values correspond to the unique record id.

Now all you have to do is have the persons submit this form and use something in your form handler like:

if ($_POST['fruits'])
{
      $_SESSION['fruits'] = $_POST['fruits'];
      /*if form handler is not the same page,
      redirect to http_referer or whatever*/
}

Finally, when they get to the "sorta checkout" page, if they need to review what they selected, do something like:

if ($_SESSION['fruits'])
{
      // implode session array 'fruit'
      $query = "SELECT * FROM fruits WHERE id = " . implode(' OR ',$_SESSION['fruits']);      

}
else
{
      // display that cart is empty or whatever
}

Finally, you can store the data in the same manner:

//checkout form handler
if ($_SESSION['fruits'])
{
      // implode session array 'fruit'
      $query = "INSERT INTO fruit_ids (ids) VALUES ('" . implode('|',$_SESSION['fruits']) . "')";
}
else
{
      // display that cart is empty or whatever
}

You could also make the checkout page another form with all the items checked and build the final implode string once again from the $_POST['fruits'] array just in case you want to let them uncheck something they accidently "ordered" before submitting them form.

[bretticus]

From a quick reread I can see at least some code that's wrong in my last response. Here's the fix:

if ($_SESSION['fruits'])
{
      // implode session array 'fruit'
      $query = "SELECT * FROM fruits WHERE id = " . implode(' OR id = ',$_SESSION['fruits']);      

}
else
{
      // display that cart is empty or whatever
}

[bretticus]

Yikes, it's late, I must be tired. Okay, my code will rewrite your session variable each time with only the values submitted from the current form, defeating the whole purpose. However, since I need sleep obviously, I'll follow up on this tomorrow...Unless someone beats me to it ;-)