Webmaster Forum / Flash / Data Integration / March 2006

Hello, I've been struggling with this for ages now, so it's time I asked for
help. I'm setting up a shopping cart in Flash, using PHP to process the
information and store/retrieve from a MySQL database. I can add items to the
cart and display them, no problem, however I can't work out how to update the
quantities of items in the cart (other than adding more of that item from the
item page). I can do it using just PHP, but I can't work out how I can get
ActionScript to send the same string as a HTML form. I'm using a HTML form that
looks like this as a template:

echo "    <tr>
        <td align=\"left\">{$row} {$row} {$row}</td>
        <td align=\"left\">{$row}</td>
        <td align=\"right\">\${$row}</td>
        <td align=\"center\"><input type=\"text\" size=\"3\" name=\"qty}]\"
value=\"{$_SESSION]}\" /></td>
        <td align=\"right\">$" . number_format ($subtotal, 2) . "</td>
    </tr>\n";

which returns the information submitted back to the same page, where the
information would be updated based on what the user had entered, something like
this:

if (isset ($_POST)) {
    foreach ($_POST as $key => $value) {
        if ( ($value == 0) AND (is_numeric ($value)) ) {
            unset ($_SESSION);
        } elseif ( is_numeric ($value) AND ($value > 0) ) {
            $_SESSION = $value;
        }
    }
}

My question is, how can I put together a string, based on the values in input
text boxes (which display the current quantity, which may or may not be changed
by the user) in ActionScript, that a PHP script like the one above would
understand? I'm using LoadVars for all my other PHP/Flash integration needs.
It's screwing my head up trying to work out how to make each quantity variable
reference the correct product, and do it the correct syntax for the query to
work. My actionscript is currently looking something like this:

///////////////////LOAD VARS//////////////////////////
cartOut = new LoadVars();
cartIn = new LoadVars();
updateOut = new LoadVars();
updateIn = new LoadVars();
iProductID_array = new Array();
qty_array = new Array();
sProductName_array = new Array();
sStoreID_array = new Array();
subTotal_array = new Array();
function displayCart() {
    var n = cartIn.n;
    var i = 0;
    var y = 24;
    while (i<n) {
        newMc = _level0.content_mc.table_mc;
        newMc._y += y;
        newMc.itemreftext = sStoreID_array;
        newMc.itemnametext = sProductName_array;
        newMc.quantitytext = qty_array;
        newMc.pricetext = "?"+subTotal_array;
        i++;
        y += 23;
        newMc._visible = 1;
        table_mc.cartTotalBox._y = newMc._y+23;
    }
}
cartIn.onLoad = function(success) {
    var n = cartIn.n;
    var i = 0;
    if (n != 0) {
        while (i<n) {
            iProductID_array = cartIn;
            sStoreID_array = cartIn;
            sProductName_array = cartIn;
            qty_array = cartIn;
            subTotal_array = cartIn;
            duplicateMovieClip(table_mc.tableRow_mc, "tableRow"+i+"_mc", i);
            i++;
        }
        buttons_mc._visible = 1;
        displayCart();
        table_mc.cartTotal = "?"+cartIn.cartTotal;
    } else if (n == 0) {
        emptyCart_mc._visible = 1;
        buttons_mc._visible = 0;
    }
};
updateIn.onLoad = function(success) {
    var n = cartIn.n;
    var i = 0;
    if (n != 0) {
        while (i<n) {
            qty_array = updateIn;
            subTotal_array = updateIn;
            i++;
        }
        displayCart();
        table_mc.cartTotal = "?"+updateIn.cartTotal;
    } else {
        emptyCart_mc._visible = 1;
        buttons_mc._visible = 0;
        table_mc._visible = 0;
    }
};
cartOut.sendAndLoad("../view_cart.php", cartIn, "POST");
///////////////////////BUTTONS////////////////////////////////
_level0.content_mc.buttons_mc.updatecartbtn_mc.onRelease = function() {
    updateMc = _level0.content_mc.table_mc;
    updateOut.num = 1;
    updateOut.prodID = iProductID_array;
    updateOut.qty = updateMc.quantitytext;
    updateOut.request = "update";
    updateOut.sendAndLoad("../view_cart.php", cartIn, "POST");
};