Question

Data structure

Asked by: narmi2

Dear Experts,

If I wanted to append some sort of string or array structure in PHP, what is the best way to do that?

Lets say I have some data stored on some sort of variable on the server, how do I add to that variable with values received from the client?

Basically, I want to send the client cart data in JSON format, but I do not know how to add to the cart on the server when new items are selected on the clientside page.

Please help

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Asked On
2009-10-30 at 02:41:56ID24857466
Topics

JSON

,

PHP Scripting Language

,

PHP and Databases

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: elvin66Posted on 2009-10-30 at 03:11:23ID: 25701502

What exactly is in the stored string on the server? Is it stored in a database or just in memory? If it is just a matter of adding new data to an already defined variable then just do

$stored_data = $stored_data.$new_data;

or $stored_data = ($stored_data + $new_data);  // assuming it is a numerical value

 

by: narmi2Posted on 2009-10-30 at 03:39:17ID: 25701623

It will be in memory.

How would this be converted to JSON so it can be sent back to the client?

 

by: bportlockPosted on 2009-10-30 at 05:46:06ID: 25702348

Are you aware that PHP supports JSON (natively after 5.2)

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.json-encode.php

Also, to communicate with the server, there is an AJAX example at Wikipedia that may help

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Json#Using_JSON_in_Ajax

 

by: narmi2Posted on 2009-10-30 at 05:59:41ID: 25702450

AJAX is not an option.  What kind of data would I have to send via "post" so php can do all the json work?

 

by: bportlockPosted on 2009-10-30 at 06:02:12ID: 25702476

If you are using POST to send data to PHP, why are you using JSON? Can you clarify this?

 

by: narmi2Posted on 2009-10-30 at 08:30:27ID: 25703933

I do not have to POST json data back to the server, that can be in any format.  What I do want is to send data from the server to the client in JSON format.  The data the server gets, should be added to the structure on the server.

 

by: bportlockPosted on 2009-10-30 at 16:03:19ID: 25707329

OK - I'm still not understanding this. If you are sending stuff from the server to the client, why not simply out the data directly as javascript? Something like so

<?php
.... code
foreach ($arrayValue as $aKey => $aValue )
   $values .= ..... some processing to lay the values out as a javascript string

echo "<script type='text/javascipt'>";      
echo "   var jsArray = array( $values ); ";
echo "</script>";

?>

That way the javascript has the PHP values in the code. If you really must have JSON code then you can surely do the same thing using PHP's JSON encode function (see earlier post) and then output that directly into the HTML javascript with the relevant JSON handler in the javascript. Since you say you wil not be using AJAX then unless you intend to use JSON-RPC ( http://jsonrpcphp.org ) or something like it then surely outputting the data directly into the HTML is the easiest way?

I can't help feeling I'm missing something here......



"The data the server gets, should be added to the structure on the server."


I do not know what you mean by this

 

by: narmi2Posted on 2009-10-31 at 02:14:14ID: 25708959

I cannot do that, because the client can be a web browser, a desktop application, a mobile application.  The client can be anything, hence the reason to only send out json.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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