How Can I Do This

doug2r

I am a newbie to PHP.

I need to create the front end for my e-commerce store. I would appreciate your thoughts on how this could be accomplished using PHP and HTML. At this time, I do not want to use a database. This store will sell license plates, license plate frames, key chains, etc. There are many combinations of vehicle manufacturer, vehicle make, license plate type, etc.

What I want to do is have the customer scroll down the page where each line looks something like this:

Toyota 4Runner Dual Emblem Plate Chrome Emblem- chrome plate D.4RU.CC
$29.95 Add Item To Cart

The field names in order are:

 Manufacturer/Make
 Plate Type
 Plate Description
 Stock Number
 Price

If the user wanted that item, they would click on an "Add Item To Cart" URL at the end of the line which would then need to create an HTML Hidden Form Post to the shopping cart sotware (Mal's e-commerce shopping cart) passing specific data like Plate Description, Stock Number, Quantity Purchased, Price, etc.

Using HTML tables would work out great for me but I need to find a way for the hidden form post to know the information to pass. Is PHP somehow able to get the data from the table? Could it access the data in the cells in a row in a table and place the values in variables?

If not, any other ideas?

Thanks.

 Doug

sneakyimp

It sounds to me like you are planning to manually create an html table with all of your products listed in it. It is probably possible to write a php script that could read in your HTML and parse it but that is really not the best approach because HTML is not really the best format for structured data.

You'd probably be better off entering all your data in a spreadsheet so that each bit of info (Mfr, Plate type, description, etc.) are in their own column. Then you could save the spreadsheet as a comma-separated text file.

THEN, a simple PHP script could read in the data, and output your html table with a button for each item that links to Mal's e-cart.

Tea_J

also, i think it's best to just use a DB if you are planning to accomplish all the goals you stated in this thread..that's the most practical way.. and forward compatible.. you'll save yourself a lot of trouble later..

or.. if you still dont want a database, at least learn XML and use that to store your data.