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Shopping Cart with Arrays & Structures/E-Commerce - Part 1

Shopping Cart/E-Commerce Tutorial

Using Arrays & Structures -Part 1 of 3-

By Michael Bamberger

This tutorial uses arrays and structures to develop a shopping cart system. This tutorial also contains web-front order processing (e-commerce) information that most of you will probably find very helpful alongside the shopping cart. If you have not yet read CJ's arrays and structures tutorials, I recommend you read them before reading this one (Part 1 Part 2 Part 3).

This tutorial comes from an eclectic group of sources. I utilized Macromedia's LiveDoc's, CJ's tutorials, as well as many other tutorial information when I first built a full shopping cart system. With that in mind, some of my coding may seem familiar from elsewhere, and I want to acknowledge that I took parts of my coding from other sources when I initially wrote all of this coding. At this point I cannot cite exactly which parts are from elsewhere, but just know that some parts are.

Additionally, this tutorial utilizes a processing system in which people who shop must sign up as members. The coding is written so it is not a nuisance for customers to sign up as they check out. The code should be easily understood and editable so customers do not have to sign up before purchasing. I did this because I have found it more convenient for customers to store their information, and its more secure as it only uses one address for both billing and shipping.

Be prepared that this is a very long tutorial, and it contains A LOT of information. If you are only interested in the concepts of an array and structure driven shopping cart, browse to the Main Shopping Cart and Add to Cart sections. I would recommend reading the entire tutorial. You will most likely discover some very useful tools that you can use when dealing with shopping carts and in other coding areas. I apologize, but brevity and e-commerce are by definition enemies. Don't let the length scare you away. It is very easy once you look at the coding and read the explanations. Even though it seems a laborious task, read this tutorial if you really want to understand shopping carts and the way in which virtually all ColdFusion e-commerce sites are written.

After reading all of that, and with a decent knowledge of arrays and structures, you can now move on to the real tutorial. Feel free to browse using the index to go to the parts that interest you.

Tutorial Index
#	Section Title
1.	Database Layout
2.	Member Sign Up
3.	*Main Shopping Cart Page
4.	*Product Display - "Add to Cart"
5.	Checkout - Order Processing
6.	Supplemental Coding - Navigation Include

This part of the tutorial deals with setting up your database and signing up members.

Section 1 - Database Layout

For the sake of making this tutorial pretty comprehensive, I am going to give a fairly large database example. There are some extraneous columns in the product table that aren't necessary for the shopping cart system to work, but it will make your site be organized in many ways.
The database I'm describing here is a Microsoft Access 2000 database with 3 tables: LCustomers, LProducts, and LOrders.

Below is the LCustomers table, which holds all the customer information so they can log-in and place orders.

LCustomers
#	Column Name	Type	Description
1.	c_id	AutoNumber	Unique id number
2.	c_fname	Text	First name
3.	c_lname	Text	Last name
4.	c_street	Text	Street address
5.	c_city	Text	City
6.	c_state	Text	State
7.	c_zip	Number	Zip/Postal Code
8.	c_phone	Text	Phone number
9.	c_email	Text	E-mail address
10.	username	Text	Username (I set it to equal the e-mail)
11.	password	Text	Selected password
12.	cc_type	Text	Credit Card Type (AmEx, Visa, etc.)
12.	cc_num	Number or Text	15-digit Credit Card Number
13.	cc_verify	Number	Credit Card Verification Code (CVV2) - usually needed
14.	cc_expir_m	Number	Expiration month as a number
15.	cc_expir_y	Number	Expiration year as a number

Please note: you should not use "username" and "password" as database fields, but for a matter of simplicity I used them here.

Below is the LProducts table, which holds all of the products that will be for sale on your site.

LProducts
#	Column Name	Type	Description
1.	p_id	AutoNumber	Unique id number
2.	p_name	Text	Product name
3.	p_type	Text	Type of product. This would be something like category (i.e. Electronics).
4.	p_brand	Text	Brand name of the product
5.	p_price	Currency	The price of the item

Below is the LOrders table, which holds all of the order information when it is processed by your site.

LOrders
#	Column Name	Type	Description
1.	o_id	AutoNumber	Unique id number
2.	o_cust	Number	Customer number - Unique ID number from LCustomers table
3.	o_items	Memo	All of the items added in an order - inserted as a list
4.	o_date	Date/Time	Date and time of order - put Now() as default value for this field
5.	o_total	Currency	The total price of the order

Ok, now that you're database is all set up (the easy part), we can move onto the actual coding of the site, starting with the Member sign up page. If you don't plan on using the member system, you can skip through here.

Section 2 - Member Sign Up

These are the scripts to sign up the members to your site. This will be expanded on in the Checkout section of the tutorial, but for now you just need the scripting.


I'm rushing through this part. This is nowhere near the crux of the tutorial, and, if you're reading this tutorial and can comprehend it, this should all be pretty self-explanatory to you. It is just the form coding with some javascript to prevent unwanted entries (numbers and letters).

Below is the coding to add the customer into the database.

This too is pretty self explanatory for an intermediate programmer. It error checks at the beginning to make sure the required fields are entered. If the fields that aren't required are blank it sets them to "". It then adds the user information into the database. Notice that it sets the username to be the e-mail address. Finally, the new user has their information e-mailed to them.

Ok, now we get to the fun part. This is the meat and potatoes of this tutorial - what I'm sure you've all been waiting for. And most of you probably skipped down to that part in the first place. Anyway, pay special attention as you move on to Part 2.

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If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail me at any time.
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3