Shopping cart - implementing product options

[adrian28uk]

I am building a small shopping cart to see how far my php knowledge can take me.

I was wondering what is the best way to implement product options on the products.

 

For example I might be selling T-Shirts, and they might be available in 3 colours.

 

Red (+ £3.00)

Black (+ £2.50)

Yellow (+ £0.00)

 

I'm not looking for any code, I would like to know how you would plan this, and if you have done this before, and how you do it.

[Northern Flame]

well u can have a set value for the product.

then have a <select></select> thing with

like this:

 

<select name="color">

<option value="3.00">red</option>

<option value="2.50">black</option>

<option value="0.00">yellow</option>

</select>

 

then in your php script get the product value

and add it with $_POST['color']

[Bauer418]

well u can have a set value for the product.

then have a <select></select> thing with

like this:

 

<select name="color">

<option value="3.00">red</option>

<option value="2.50">black</option>

<option value="0.00">yellow</option>

</select>

 

then in your php script get the product value

and add it with $_POST['color']

Too much work required just to verify the user's input because a fake value can be inserted easily.

 

I'd go more for this approach:

 

<select name="product_variant">

<option value="1">red</option>

<option value="2">black</option>

<option value="3">yellow</option>

</select>

 

Then you'd have another table in your database called product_variant (which has a column product_id to relate each variant to a particular id) and then you can get the price out of your product variant table.

[Northern Flame]

Too much work required just to verify the user's input because a fake value can be inserted easily.

 

yea thats true,

it could easily be faked using the method I posted....

[adrian28uk]

I see. So the id is inserted in to the database. Then when calling the cart you can access the id which in turn brings up the product option name and price you selected.

[Northern Flame]

you dont necessarily need to use a database.

you could just do this:

 

<?php

switch($_POST['color']){
case 1:
$add = 3;
break;
case 2:
$add = 2.50;
break;
case 3:
$add = 0;
break;
}

 

then do your product value + $add to get final price

[Bauer418]

you dont necessarily need to use a database.

you could just do this:

 

<?php

switch($_POST['color']){
case 1:
$add = 3;
break;
case 2:
$add = 2.50;
break;
case 3:
$add = 0;
break;
}

 

then do your product value + $add to get final price

 

Yes, but could you imagine having to do that kind of code for every single product on your website.  Very inefficient.