array confusion

[Capoeirista]

Hi There -

Am a little confused trying to wrap my mind around arrays in a shopping cart. A friend from class has lent me some of her code to look at. She has a friend at work who helped her through this.

Here's the code that I understand:

while ($row=mysql_fetch_array($rs))
 {
   echo("<tr bgcolor=#88ccaa><td align=center>");
   echo($row["prod_ID"]);
   echo("</td><td>");
   echo($row["prod_Name"]);
   echo("</td><td>");
   echo("$".$row["prod_Cost"]);
   echo("</td><td>");
   echo($row["prod_Unit"]);
   echo("</td>");

No problem. Pretty straightforward. Populating a table with data from my database.

Here's the line I've never seen before.

<td>
Quantity <Input type="text" name="<?= $row['prod_ID'] ?>" value="<?= $_REQUEST[$row['prod_ID']] ?>" size="3">
</td>
<? } ?>

Specifically, this:

name="<?= $row['prod_ID'] ?>" value="<?= $_REQUEST[$row['prod_ID']] ?>"

First question:
Can anyone explain what the '=' means after the '<?' ??? The manual won't let me search for it.

Second question: how do I figure out how to store the arrays so that I can draw a shopping cart with the data? I'd like to store product_id, product name, quantity desired and price.

How do I get the variables to only store the data from the rows that the user chooses? The ones with an integer in the textfield.

Everything i come up with is horrendously complicated and only gets more complicated the more I think about it. I figure there's got to be an elegant and common solution to this.

Thank you to whomever helps.

Lee

[NogDog]

<?= $variable ?> is a short-cut method for <?php echo $variable; ?>. In the long run, you are probably better off using the longer form rather than the short-cut, as the latter will only work if the "short_open_tag" option is enabled in your PHP installation, whereas the long form will always work.

[Capoeirista]

Great! That makes sense, then. I searched and couldn't figure out what it meant.

Is there a smart and elegant solution for the arrays? I've come up with a few ways that would probably work, but I'm betting that there's something smarter out there.

Anyway, thank you so much for your help. I'm very grateful.

Lee