Re: shopping cart remembers cart with COOKIES instead of SESSION?

You would've had to do some *extra* work, I think, to get PHP sessions to NOT use cookies - it seems they're the default session mechanism. I don't know how you'd - Oh! I get it. You want the actual contents of the shopping cart to be in the cookie? That might not be a good idea for a couple reasons. 1. Cart data could get quite big - I believe many browsers have a 4k limit on cookie size. Even if there's no limit, that cookie data will get sent back with every request to your domain - even graphic requests. A cookie with 3k of data of data, hitting a page with 10 elements (html and graphics) can lead to 100s of thousands of wasted transfer during a moderate shopping session. 2. Someone could look at the cookie and possibly modify it. If you're trying to enforce purchasing limits, (only 2 of X if you purchase Y or something like that) you'll run into problems. Why not just make the session ID in a cookie and make the cookie's expiration date months in the future? Yes, not everyone accepts cookies. Nor does everyone accept javascript. Not everyone uses the web. Cookies vs. no cookies? It can be a tough call, but you've got to weigh the benefits of development time vs. potential reduced audience. Only you can make that call. Derek Sivers wrote: > Does anyone know a free PHP shopping cart out there that uses COOKIES to > remember someone's cart contents? > > The cart I use now does it with PHP4 sessions, but that means if you close > your browser and come back, all your items are gone. > > I'd like to keep my php4 cart, but move it to cookie-style, to keep those > carts going for months. (As optional, for those who have cookies of course.) > > Any advice, URLs, recommendations, pointers, appreciated. > > Thanks! -- ========================== Michael Kimsal http://www.phphelpdesk.com/search/ PHP Training courses http://www.tapinternet.com/php