shopping cart programming

[GroundHog]

hi Folks,

i'm into HTML, so advanced stuff makes my brain scream.

can someone point me in the right direction for this stuff?

one of my clients who sells books thru normal payment gateways like Paypal
or USA-epay, as requirements from a new fulfillment house, that orders are
send to them in a plain text file. I'll paste an example of their output
below.

I've set up simple "buy now" paypal buttons, and set up other more complex
parameters on user consoles for shopping carts, but this kind of output is
like "greek" to me, and I've not a clue how to set up any payment gateway to
generate this kind of output. It's sort of like stings of quote-delimited
fields, terminated with carriage returns (CR-LF). Reminds me of a CSV file.

i'm not server-side or database 'savvy'...

here's an example of requested output file in ASCII text:


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"H","INVOICE1","TEST","U25","SHDOME","06/16/2004","John Doe","10 Main
St.","Suite 110","","","Boston","MA","zip","USA","12345","123-4567",""
"D","7777","1","INVOICE1"
"D","9","1","INVOICE1"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



thanks for any hints.

Brian

 

[Neredbojias]

hi Folks,

i'm into HTML, so advanced stuff makes my brain scream.

can someone point me in the right direction for this stuff?

one of my clients who sells books thru normal payment gateways like
Paypal or USA-epay, as requirements from a new fulfillment house,
that orders are send to them in a plain text file. I'll paste an
example of their output below.

I've set up simple "buy now" paypal buttons, and set up other more
complex parameters on user consoles for shopping carts, but this kind
of output is like "greek" to me, and I've not a clue how to set up
any payment gateway to generate this kind of output. It's sort of
like stings of quote-delimited fields, terminated with carriage
returns (CR-LF). Reminds me of a CSV file.

i'm not server-side or database 'savvy'...

here's an example of requested output file in ASCII text:


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"H","INVOICE1","TEST","U25","SHDOME","06/16/2004","John Doe","10 Main
St.","Suite
110","","","Boston","MA","zip","USA","12345","123-4567",""
"D","7777","1","INVOICE1" "D","9","1","INVOICE1"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Looks like data which could be handled pretty simply with server-side
scripting. Dunno about the security measures involved and since you
mentioed you weren't familiar with server-side this might not help, but
php can deal with stuff like that with ease.

 

[Denis McMahon]

hi Folks,

i'm into HTML, so advanced stuff makes my brain scream.

can someone point me in the right direction for this stuff?

one of my clients who sells books thru normal payment gateways like Paypal
or USA-epay, as requirements from a new fulfillment house, that orders are
send to them in a plain text file. I'll paste an example of their output
below.

I've set up simple "buy now" paypal buttons, and set up other more complex
parameters on user consoles for shopping carts, but this kind of output is
like "greek" to me, and I've not a clue how to set up any payment gateway to
generate this kind of output. It's sort of like stings of quote-delimited
fields, terminated with carriage returns (CR-LF). Reminds me of a CSV file.

i'm not server-side or database 'savvy'...

here's an example of requested output file in ASCII text:


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"H","INVOICE1","TEST","U25","SHDOME","06/16/2004","John Doe","10 Main
St.","Suite 110","","","Boston","MA","zip","USA","12345","123-4567",""
"D","7777","1","INVOICE1"
"D","9","1","INVOICE1"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

thanks for any hints.

Hmm, first thing you need to do is find out what server side scripting
is available.

The easy test for php is this:

Create a new file called info.php on the server containing the following:

---8<--- cut here ---8<---
<?php
phpinf();
?>
---8<--- cut here ---8<---

Try and load http://website/info.php into your browser. If you get a
nicely formatted display with lots of info, php is installed on the server.

The following (testfor.aspx) should indicate if asp is available:

---8<--- cut here ---8<---
<html>
<head>
<title>ASP or Not ASP</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Text below will indicate ASP functionality on the server.</p>
<%
response.write("<p>ASP is available.</p>")
%>
</body>
</html>
---8<--- cut here ---8<---

Again, try and load http://website/testfor.aspx into your browser

If there is a "cgi-bin" directory available on the host server when you
use ftp access, it's possible that server side perl scripting is
supported. The following "hellow.cgi" should be placed in the cgi-bin
directory. Note that your server may require that /usr/bin/perl is
replaced with some other path to function correctly.

---8<--- cut here ---8<---
#! /usr/bin/perl

print "Content-type:text/html\n\n";

print "<html><head><title>My First Script</title></head>\n\n";
print "<body>\n";
print "<p>Hello world!</p>\n";
print "</body></html>";
---8<--- cut here ---8<---

Again, try and load http://website/cgi/hellow.cgi into your browser

If one of these indicates that your clients server supports the relevant
server side scripting technology, then seek an appropriate php / asp /
perl newsgroup for further assistance.

There are doubtless other quick tests available for other server side
scripting technologies, but those three are amongst the most common, and
I think that's enough server side script for a single post in here, so
I'll leave those for people more familiar with those technologies.

Rgds

Denis McMahon

 

[rf]

Hmm, first thing you need to do is find out what server side scripting
is available.

The easy test for php is this:

<snip tests>

I would have thought that one would have known what server side scripting
would be available when one purchaced the hosting.

 

[Denis McMahon]

<snip tests>

I would have thought that one would have known what server side scripting
would be available when one purchaced the hosting.

So would I, but the OP doesn't seem to be aware, or if he is, didn't see
fit to mention.

Rgds

Denis McMahon

 

[dorayme]

So would I, but the OP doesn't seem to be aware, or if he is, didn't see
fit to mention.

Who purchases hosting and what they know, who comes to operate on
a hosted site and what they know can be one or two pairs.

 

[rf]

Who purchases hosting and what they know, who comes to operate on
a hosted site and what they know can be one or two pairs.

So, if the OP "comes to operate on a hosted site" then surely the OP would
have been informed as to what tools are available. Otherwise how would the
OP be expected to do his job?

 

[dorayme]

So, if the OP "comes to operate on a hosted site" then surely the OP would
have been informed as to what tools are available. Otherwise how would the
OP be expected to do his job?

Does not seem at all obvious to me. You (and maybe many of us)
would take a look at what is on offer early on. But others might
not.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

hi Folks,

i'm into HTML, so advanced stuff makes my brain scream.

can someone point me in the right direction for this stuff?

one of my clients who sells books thru normal payment gateways like Paypal
or USA-epay, as requirements from a new fulfillment house, that orders are
send to them in a plain text file.  I'll paste an example of their output
below.

I've set up simple "buy now" paypal buttons, and set up other more complex
parameters on user consoles for shopping carts, but this kind of output is
like "greek" to me, and I've not a clue how to set up any payment gateway to
generate this kind of output.  It's sort of like stings of quote-delimited
fields, terminated with carriage returns (CR-LF).  Reminds me of a CSV file.

i'm not server-side or database 'savvy'...

here's an example of requested output file in ASCII text:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"H","INVOICE1","TEST","U25","SHDOME","06/16/2004","John Doe","10 Main
St.","Suite 110","","","Boston","MA","zip","USA","12345","123-4567",""
"D","7777","1","INVOICE1"
"D","9","1","INVOICE1"

Many of the better hosts have a user manual that you can see even if
you do not have an account with the host. So I suggest you first see
if the host to be used has such a manual and read it if they do. To
give an example, I use a host that is used by many for selling things.
I do not sell, so I would not comment on the ease of use for selling
by various hosts. However the host I use has osCommerce installed and
ready to turn on. See http://www.hostexcellence.com/index.php/v2/pages.manual
and scroll nearly to the bottom of the page to the section "Creating
an online store". Even with osCommerce installed and good server side
script and data base support, there is still quite a bit to do, and
many install "helper" services to make the task more simple. Even more
likely use store services provided by yahoo, amazom, eBay, etc., to
avoid having to set up a store from scratch. Big companies that do not
have a computing department qualified for setting up a big store
operation contract with online store specialists.