1ST step to do Shopping Cart- PlS HELP

Lylian

Dear all experts,

I am very new to PHP and MySql, I am trying to make my question clear... I am starting to do my shopping cart and I get stuck on the first step. let's say I have a page display a table and this table pulled out from mySql Database, my table has 10 rows (calls R1, R2.. to R10), each row has 3 fields. Now, user want to buy item R3. How can I grab this R3 from my database to throw in the shopping cart? What step am I missing? Do I need a ROW number or something? so when I click on any line (Row) I can link back to where the "Row" came from to pull out that record to throw in a new table (shopping cart)? Please help. My question might be very dump, I will try to make it clear as much as I can. Thanks

phpmavenman

Not a dumb question, just one with a simple answer.

All of your products need to have a Unique Row Identifier (Auto incrementing Primary Key works well for this). You will want reference this Unique key as you add the product to your cart, either through the href or as a field in the form submit.

Best Practice would be to just store the Unique Key and any options the user selects for that product in the shopping cart. When you list the items in a Checkout page use the Unique key to get the Description, Name, etc from the products table.

Lylian

Thank you for your time to help. where do I add ID auto_increment? my host server using mySQL 3.23 and PHP myAdmin, I went in to select my table and use the option Auto_increment. I came up :Your SQL-query has been executed successfully, ALTER TABLE INVENTORY PACK_KEYS = 0 CHECKSUM = 0 DELAY_KEY_WRITE = 0 AUTO_INCREMENT = 1, I look on the my table "inventory", I don't see any different!, Any link where I can learn how this works? or do you have any example PHP code for reference?

qadeer_ahmad

Hi,

i am sending u create table query it may diffrent from ur project but it can help u designing a auto increment field

CREATE TABLE cart (

cartId int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,

cookieId varchar(50) default NULL,

itemId int(11) default NULL,

qty int(11) default NULL,

PRIMARY KEY (cartId)

)

In this query cartId the field is auto increment field....

Hope will help you.

edcellgavin

if key to change to auto_increment field has no index defined, add this

alter table table_name key(column_name);

add unique column

alter table table_name table_nameadd column id int(11) unsigned not null auto_increment;

or change existing field type, this would format the old values, so be careful

alter table table_name modify column_name int(11) unsigned not null auto_increment;

add unique constraints

alter table table_name add unique('column_name');

Lylian

thanks all. Got it. Your replies are so helpful and priceless for all of the beginner like me.

Lylian

Thanks all,
I am getting closer, I found the answers from one of my books. now I can apply the hints from all your helps. Short questions: What is the CookieID for? why do I need that? sorry.. my stupid question! anyone? please help. Thanks

qadeer_ahmad

Hi,

As such CookieID is not any function it may be some variable name i give u helpful tip see the site

www.php.net

and what u need help just type frunt of it like u need to search on array u just type it like this

www.php.net/array

it help u very much ...

Thanks