Building a shopping cart

wizzard81

Hello,

I'm working on the website for my company where i want to sell audio products but i'm new with php and want to make a shopping cart. I want that that if the users placed something in the basket if he comes back after like 5 hours it still is in the basket. As beginner how do i start?

Like the basket must contains the product id, quantity, price

On the payout i have to fix something for the shipments costs also like UPS/Express Mail .... but if someone here can helps me? I have to fix my webshop before july i'm also working with a creditcard company as payment option.

Best Regards
Kris

hermand

Use cookies in conjunction with mysql.

You have a table with say "cookie_id" "item" "qty" then in the cookie you store the cookie id. So when he returns you can simply do a

"SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE cookie_id = '$cid'"

Hope this helps, anything else, give us a shout.

wizzard81

Thanks but do i still have to work with a session for adding to cart viewing the cart... ?

hermand

No, you shouldn't do.

Another idea, may be to make the user sign up, that way you dont rely on any client-side procedures at all.

wizzard81

okey but i don't want that the users have to register. So with cookies is everything possible. Why are all those shopping carts you find on the web work with sessions?

hermand

Okay, think of sessions as a server side cookie, which only remains there while you're on the site.

So, basically, if your cart has sessions then there is a wee file on the server with some unique id [To identify the machine] and the Shopping Cart ID thing, which you use to get the info from MySQL.

These are better, because they're "guaranteed" but they are deleted as soon as the browser is closed. HOwever, cookies (Which can be disabled, remember) can work for any period of time you choose.

(Technically, they aren't deleted, they just wont recognise the user anymore)

I think that makes sense.