Sort products (and set vars) w/o query string ...

[dalecosp]

So, I've got a long list of products and want to sort them by title, or location, or price or whatnot.

I might be OK with resubmitting the page, but I don't want a query string if possible.

Is there an elegant solution?

My two thoughts:

1. Every item on the page is available to the DOM via a unique identifier, and Javascript can do the sorting without a page load, OR:

2. The "sort" condition variable goes in $COOKIE (?? or $SESSION, though I'm not sure how I'd accomplish that) and is re-submitted to the page.

Thoughts? Google seems surprisingly short on help (probably I'm not sure what terms to give it in the query).

Thanks in advance,

[bradgrafelman]

dalecosp;11031309 wrote:

I don't want a query string if possible.

Why not?

dalecosp;11031309 wrote:

1. Every item on the page is available to the DOM via a unique identifier, and Javascript can do the sorting without a page load, OR:

There are examples on the web of making "sortable" tables of data using Javascript, but note that doing this would require you to transfer all of the data in the body of the request; if you have a lot of data and want to paginate it, this might be more bandwidth-intensive than desired.

Since we're talking about JS, you could also just use AJAX to retrieve the set of data that is to be displayed.

dalecosp;11031309 wrote:

2. The "sort" condition variable goes in $COOKIE (?? or $SESSION, though I'm not sure how I'd accomplish that) and is re-submitted to the page.

Well, you should be able to set a cookie using Javascript before you navigate to the next URL, but I'm still baffled as to why you'd go through all that trouble rather than just utilize the query string like everyone else. :p

[dalecosp]

bradgrafelman;11031313 wrote:

Why not?

There are examples on the web of making "sortable" tables of data using Javascript, but note that doing this would require you to transfer all of the data in the body of the request; if you have a lot of data and want to paginate it, this might be more bandwidth-intensive than desired.

True dat.

Since we're talking about JS, you could also just use AJAX to retrieve the set of data that is to be displayed.

That's one of my thoughts above.

Well, you should be able to set a cookie using Javascript before you navigate to the next URL, but I'm still baffled as to why you'd go through all that trouble rather than just utilize the query string like everyone else. :p

Well, I'm not exactly sure this makes my case, but my thinking so far goes something like this:

1. Create more memorable URI's for "non-standard" uses (verbal or written communication, human memory, etc.)
2. Streamline analytics and make statistics align more closely with reality.
3. Prevent minor maliciousness by obfuscation of site params.
4. Potentially avoid major malicious behavior by placing configuration data in less available mediums*.

This is, obviously, the usual reason so many people are utilizing mod_rewrite.

For this, obviously we're not going to avoid a real* cracker, but so much stuff "in the wild" is simply "point and shoot" malware, we feel there could be some advantage to this. And yes, we try and sanitize everything, but we're not pen-testing experts and probably don't have the $$ to hire any....