PHP 5 e-commerce Development Create a flexible framework in PHP for a powerful e-commerce solution Michael Peacock BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
PHP 5 e-commerce Development Copyright 2010 Packt Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book. Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information. First published: January 2010 Production Reference: 1140110 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. 32 Lincoln Road Olton Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK. ISBN 978-1-847199-64-5 www.packtpub.com Cover Image by Vinayak Chittar (vinayak.chittar@gmail.com)
Credits Author Michael Peacock Production Editorial Manager Abhijeet Deobhakta Reviewers Chetankumar Akarte Tahsin Hasan Acquisition Editor Douglas Paterson Development Editor Swapna V. Verlekar Technical Editor Ishita Dhabalia Indexer Rekha Nair Proofreader Sandra Hopper Editorial Team Leader Gagandeep Singh Project Team Leader Lata Basantani Project Coordinator Poorvi Nair Graphics Geetanjali Sawant Production Coordinator Shantanu Zagade Cover Work Shantanu Zagade
About the Author Michael Peacock (http://www.michaelpeacock.co.uk) is a web developer from Newcastle on Tyne, UK with a degree in Software Engineering from the University of Durham. After meeting his business partner while studying at Durham, he co-founded Peacock Carter Limited (http://www.peacockcarter.co.uk), a Newcastle-based creative consultancy specializing in web design, web development, and corporate identity. Michael loves working on web-related projects and new business ideas, usually with interests in several companies. He has been involved with a number of books, having written four books: PHP 5 e-commerce Development, Drupal 6 Social Networking, Selling Online with Drupal e-commerce, and Building Websites with TYPO3, and acted as technical reviewer for two others Mobile Web Development and Drupal for Education and E-Learning. You can follow Michael on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/michaelpeacock. I'd like to thank everybody at Packt Publishing, in particular Douglas Paterson for working with me on building the idea of this book into a suitable structure; Poorvi Nair for helping to keep the book on track; Swapna Verlekar, the development editor; and of course, the technical reviewers, Chetan Akarte and Tahsin Hasan, who helped improve the quality of the book. My thanks also go to my friends and family, in particular my fiancée Emma for her support while working on the book. Finally, I'd like to thank you, the reader; I hope that you enjoy this book, and produce a fantastic e-commerce website of your own. I look forward to hearing your feedback and seeing what e-commerce sites you come up with!
About the Reviewers Chetankumar Akarte is working on PHP since last 5 years. He has extensively worked on small- and large-scale PHP e-commerce, social networking, Wordpress, and Joomla-based web projects. Over the years, Chetan has been actively involved in "Xfunda Developers Community" and has regularly been blogging on Microsoft.NET technology at http://www.tipsntracks.com. Chetan received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics from the Nagpur University, India in 2006. He likes to contribute on the newsgroups and forums, and has written articles for Electronics For You, DeveloperIQ, and Flash & Flex Developer's Magazine. Chetan lives in Navi Mumbai, India. You can visit his websites http://www.xfunda.com and http://www.tipsntracks.com or get in touch with him at chetan.akarte@gmail.com. I would like to thank my sister Poonam and Jijaji Vinay for their consistent support and encouragement. I'd also like to thank Packt Publishing and especially my Project Coordinator Poorvi for giving me the opportunity to do something useful.
Tahsin Hasan is a software engineer. He passed the Zend Certification Exam on August 09, 2009 and has become the seventeenth Zend Certified Engineer (ZCE) from Bangladesh. This is the topmost certification on PHP from Zend, the developer of this outstanding scripting language. He is a tech enthusiastic and always keeps himself well-equipped with latest technologies. He has completed his M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering from Jahangirnagar University. Tahsin Hasan has profound knowledge of LAMP environment. His advanced understanding of database environments and Apache web server is an asset. He has proficiency in scalability and optimizing of server performance. He has worked with Zend framework, CakePHP, Codeigniter, and Symfony. I'd like to give thanks to my parents and my siblings for their encouragement and also a special thanks to Poorvi Nair and Swapna Verlekar from Packt Publishing.
Table of Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1: PHP e-commerce 7 e-commerce: Who, what, where, why? 7 An overview of e-commerce 7 ebay 8 Amazon 8 Brick 'N Mortar stores 8 Service-based companies 8 Why use e-commerce? 9 Rolling out your own framework 9 Why PHP? 9 Why a framework? 9 When to use an existing package? 10 Existing products 10 A look at e-commerce sites 10 istockphoto 11 WooThemes 11 ebay 12 Amazon 12 Play.com 12 e-commerce: What does it need to do/have? 13 Products 13 Checkout process 14 General 14 Our framework: What is it going to do? 14 Our framework: Why is it going to do it? 15 Juniper Theatricals 16 Summary 17
Table of Contents Chapter 2: Planning our Framework 19 Designing a killer framework 19 Patterns 20 Model-View-Controller (MVC) 20 Registry 21 Singleton 22 Structure 23 Building a killer framework 24 Pattern implementation 25 MVC 25 Registry 25 Singleton 27 Registry objects 29 Routing requests 54 An alternative: With a router 54 Processing the incoming URL within our registry object 55 index.php 56.htaccess file 58 Configuration file 58 What about e-commerce? 59 An e-commerce registry? 59 Summary 60 Chapter 3: Products and Categories 61 What we need 61 Product information 62 Category information 62 Structuring content within our framework 63 Pages 63 Content 63 Versioning 64 Building products, categories, and content functionality into our framework 65 Database 65 Content 65 Content types 67 Content versions 68 Products 69 Categories 70 Pages within our framework 70 Model 70 View 73 Controller 74 Products 76 Model 76 View 80 [ ii ]
[ iii ] Table of Contents Controller 81 Categories 83 Model 84 View 87 Controller 89 Some thoughts 92 Product and category images 92 Routing products and categories 92 Featured products 93 Embedding products 93 Summary 94 Chapter 4: Product Variations and User Uploads 95 Giving users choice 95 Simple variants 96 How could this work? 96 Combinations of variants 96 How will this work? 96 High-level overview 97 Database structure 98 Template switching 100 Templates 103 A look back at simple variants 104 Giving users control 104 How to customize a product? 105 Uploads 105 Custom text 105 Maintaining uploads 106 Security considerations 107 Database changes 107 Extending our products table 107 Template switching 108 Shopping basket preparation 110 Stock control 110 Product variations 111 Product customizations 111 Basket templates 111 Product subtotals 111 Summary 112 Chapter 5: Enhancing the User Experience 113 Juniper Theatricals 113 The importance of user experience 114 Search 114 Finding products 114