[RESOLVED] Storing several items in session

mattm591

Hi,

I'm trying to use a session to store information about product ids and quanitys of a product people are buying.

So in a session I would, for example, be wanting to store this

0001 - 6
0003 - 1
0131 - 2

so that on another page I could then pull back out the data and know they wanted to to buy 6 of whatever product id 0001 was etc.

So how can I do this using sessions because the tutorials I've read only seem to reference registering a single item in a session.

Thanks,

Matt

alimadzi

You can register as many session variables as you like, so what you're proposing is definitely doable.

mattm591

But how would I do it so that the two things (product id and quantity) are linked together and can then be read back out from the session together?

alimadzi

mattm591 wrote:
But how would I do it so that the two things (product id and quantity) are linked together and can then be read back out from the session together?

You could make the product id the session variable name and the quantity its value. Like this...

$_SESSION['0001'] = 6;

Does that help?

mattm591

Yes thank you, but then how would I get that back out again (sorry I'm new to the crazy world of sessions)

alimadzi

mattm591 wrote:
Yes thank you, but then how would I get that back out again (sorry I'm new to the crazy world of sessions)

That's OK, it's quite simple...

echo $_SESSION['0001'];

mattm591

Brilliant! Thanks a lot!

alimadzi

mattm591 wrote:
Brilliant! Thanks a lot!

Aw, shucks... not sure it's brilliant but I'm happy to help. Sessions can be tricky. Let us know if you have any more questions.

mattm591

This might be a stupid question but how do I output all of the items in the session if I don't know what product ids are stored?

I want all of the product ids and how many of each are there.

Echo $_SESSION bit required me to know the product id already which I wouldn't.

alimadzi

This will work...

print_r($_SESSION);

mattm591

This only outputs them as text. If I wanted to move them into a table or take the product id and run it against the table to get the rest of the product information this wouldn't work.

alimadzi

OK, so maybe something more like this...

<?php

foreach ( $_SESSION as $id => $count ) {
    // run queries to get info from DB or update DB
}

?>

Better?

mattm591

I got this output when I tested that out,

"Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_FOREACH in /home/matt4617/public_html/testing/jodie-shop/testcart.php on line 5"

using this code

<?php

session_start()

foreach ($_SESSION as $id) {

echo $id;

}

?>

Also, would that code output the product ids or the quantities?

Thanks for your help 🙂

alimadzi

Your parse error is because you're missing a semi-colon after session_start().

Your foreach loop as written would output the quantities.

mattm591

Oh of course it is.. sorry, I should have realised that.

Ok. So (hopefully) my last question is, how do I output the product ids in a similar way to the quantities?

alimadzi

mattm591 wrote:
Oh of course it is.. sorry, I should have realised that.

Ok. So (hopefully) my last question is, how do I output the product ids in a similar way to the quantities?

Just use foreach ($_SESSION as $id => $quantity)...

Name the variables however you like...

mattm591

Ok then thanks a lot!