PHP (most recently viewed items)

Manat

Hello all

Would anyone know how to implement a Most Recently Viewed Items in php? Like they do on Amazon.com?

If you view a donald duck DVD, and then go to a PHP book.
On the side of the PHP Book item description, you'll have a Most Recently Viewed Items. So it would list the donald duck DVD and if you click on it, it brings you it it's product description.

Thanks

eoghain

The easiest way would probably be to build an array of items viewed and store it as a cookie (unless you want it to persist between sessions) and then just read that cookie for the data of the most reciently viewed section.

It shouldn't be too hard to create the array and manage it with a timestamp for viewing times so that when they go back to the donald duck dvd the time stamp will update so the item will be put to the top of the list.

Manat

Hi
Can you give me some code snippets?
I've never done anything like this.

Thanks dude!

eoghain

Sorry I don't have any code, but if you look up sessions you'll get all of the information that you need. PHP's sessions take all the work out of dealing with cookies.

Elizabeth

If you want to use cookies, just use the code:

setcookie("variable", "value");

But this has to come before any html code in your page; you can't set cookies in the middle of a page.

Also, this cookie will expire when the user leaves your website, unless you include an expire time at the end.

As well, if your user has cookies disabled, your code won't work.

hth

-Elizabeth