Re: PHP - Web/list Question...

On 9 Nov 2008, at 18:37, Robert Cummings wrote:

On Sun, 2008-11-09 at 18:22 +0000, Stut wrote:

On 9 Nov 2008, at 18:14, Robert Cummings wrote:

On Sun, 2008-11-09 at 18:00 +0000, Stut wrote:

On 9 Nov 2008, at 07:16, Robert Cummings wrote:

On Sat, 2008-11-08 at 20:26 -0800, bruce wrote:

I've got a question/issue that I want to bounce off the list. I have a list that extends over multiple pages. there might be 200 items, and i don't want to have the items listed on the same page as it would be too long. i can break the list up, so i can have it be displayed over multiple pages. however, i want the user to select different items from the list. given that the selected items might be over different pages, what's the best way of keeping a running track of the items that have been selected?? I could have each page be a form, and do a post/get where i then keep track of the selected items from page to page, but that would appear to get ugly. i'm looking for pointers to other sites/code that might have already implemented this kind of scenario. thoughts/pointers would be appreciated...

Accumulate them in the session. When done, and before final action you could let them view a summary of selected items and allow deletion of any entries they don't want.

Unless they're likely to select hundreds of items I'd either go with a persisted GET var or a cookie. No need to drag server-side storage into this.

Well he did say he had multiple pages. Maybe he's only displaying 5 per page though. Still, sessions are easier to manage than GET vars since you don't need to append them to every form action URL to accumulate them. Session is managed transparently by PHP in most cases an amounts to the approximate overhead of an include.

Seriously? You'd rather use sessions than explode, modify and implode an array of numbers on each request? You really see that as a valuable developer time-saver? The mind boggles, but as I've said before and probably will again it's always a personal choice, I'm just suggesting alternatives.

Depends on the situation really. I'd really not restrict myself in an environment where there is sufficient possibility for which X numbers whose cumulative digits could easily break the 1024 byte lower bound for GET requests. How many digits are these IDs? How man can be chosen? It's not unreasonable to select pages of some kind of item. It would only take 200 averaging 5 digits to break the limit. The solution here is simple in both respects, and using sessions really doesn't strike me as using a sledgehammer.

I don't disagree, I was just pointing out that sessions as implemented by PHP are not the only answer to data storage between requests and in a lot of cases are overkill. It's a decision you have to base on the requirements and expected future developments of a project. I firmly believe the advice given on this list should provide choices rather than dictate methods. There's always more than one way to do something. -Stut -- http://stut.net/