[Pdx-pm] Shopping Cart Logic

[Randal L. Schwartz]

>>>>> "A" == A J Weinzettel <aj at linuxaid.org> writes:

A> I am building a custom shopping cart for a customer and I am trying to
A> find a better way to add / delete products from the cart.  Here is my
A> logic:

A> 1. Customer adds an item to the cart

A> 2. Check the presence of a cookie
A>    a. If no cookie set a unique cookie using time goto 3
A>    b. If cookie present goto 3

A> 3. Insert a record into the database with the unique id and product info
A>    a. If customer checks out goto 4
A>    b. If customer keeps on shopping goto 1

A> 4. Customer checks out and records from shopping_cart table get
A> transferred to products_ordered table.

A> My problem is when a customer does not check out the records in the
A> shopping_cart table get abandoned.  I really don't like this idea.  I
A> could write a cron to delete the records that are x days old, but I am
A> wanting something that does not require an outside process.  What other
A> ways can I keep the database nice and clean?

You can require registration before purchase... and associate the
shopping cart with the person, not the session.  Put up a notice
that items left in shopping cart over 30 days are recycled.

This is the Amazon model.  Works pretty well.

-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn at stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!