Applying pagination to search results using Zend Paginator - php

Question

I've searched through similar questions but to no avail, so hopefully someone can help.
I'm having an issue paginating the search results on a site I've built using the Zend Framework (1.12). I can retrieve the items and also the pagination is formed but when I click to go to the next page of pagination, all the search results are lost. The code appends ?page=2 e.t.c to the URL but the code then loses the searchitems.
I read in one question about possibly using sessions or Zend_Session in particular but I'm a little lost at present! Relatively new to PHP.
Firstly here is my search form - search-form.php (XHTML)
<?php
// Search Form
?>
<div id="search">
<h4 style="margin-bottom:20px;">Search</h4>
<form name="prodSearch" action="listing-search.php" method="post">
<input type="text" name="searchitems" id="searchitems" />
<input type="submit" name="search_items" id="search_items" value="Go" />
</form>
</div>
This is included in my other pages.
listing-search.php is then as follows
<?php
require_once('admin/scripts/library.php');
require_once('admin/scripts/db_definitions.php');
try {
?>
<!-- HTML Doc Type, Head removed e.t.c -->
<div id="listing-col-main">
<div id="all-cars">
<h4>Search Results</h4>
</div>
<!-- Listings -->
<?php
$query = $_POST['searchitems'];
$min_length = 3;
if (strlen($query) >= $min_length) {
$query = htmlspecialchars($query);
$query = mysql_real_escape_string($query);
$raw = searchItems($dbread, $query);
$paginator = Zend_Paginator::factory($raw);
if (isset($_GET['page'])) {
$paginator->setCurrentPageNumber($_GET['page']);
}
$paginator->setItemCountPerPage(8);
$paginator->setPageRange(3);
$count = $paginator->getTotalItemCount();
if ($count > 0) {
foreach ($paginator as $results) { // repeat all results ?>
<?php
$item_id = $results['item_id'];
$photos = getRelatedPhotos2($dbread, $item_id);
?>
<div class="product-listing">
<div class="product-listing-image">
<?php foreach ($photos as $photo) { //repeat ?>
<img src="image_upload/<?php echo $photo['filename']; ?>" width="75" alt="" />
<?php } ?>
</div>
<div class="product-listing-title">
<h4><?php echo $results['type_name']; ?> - <?php echo $results['item_make'] . ' ' . $results['item_model']; ?> </h4>
</div>
<div class="product-listing-details">
<p>YEAR: <?php echo $results['item_year']; ?> FUEL: <?php echo $results['item_fuel']; ?> TRANS: <?php echo $results['item_transmission']; ?> MILEAGE: <?php echo $results['item_mileage']; ?> </p>
</div>
<div class="product-listing-viewmore">More Info</div>
</div>
<?php } ?>
<!-- 8 products per page -->
<div id="product-listing-pagination">
<?php
$pages = $paginator->getPages('Elastic');
if (isset($pages->previous)) {
echo 'Prev';
}
foreach ($pages->pagesInRange as $page) {
if ($page != $pages->current) {
echo " <a href='" . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . "?page={$page}'>$page</a>";
} else {
echo ' ' . $page;
}
}
if (isset($pages->next)) {
echo ' Next';
}
?>
</div>
<?php } else { ?>
<div id="noresults"> <?php echo "No results found for " . $query; ?> </div>
<?php }
} ?>
</div>
<div id="col-right">
<?php include("search-usedcars.php"); ?>
<!-- End of Main Search -->
<div id="latest-news">
<h3>Latest News</h3>
<?php include("latestnews.php"); ?>
</div>
</div>
<div class="clear"></div>
<div id="footer-bar"> Designed by </div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
<?php
} catch (Exception $e) {
echo $e->getMessage();
}
?>

Answer 1

It is because your query is passed in $_POST, when you click your nav links away you loose the data stored in $_POST and only keep what is in $_GET. Either change your search form method to $_GET and add &searchitems="'.$query.'" to both your nav links, or store the query in $_SESSION, or you can change your nav links to buttons wrapped in forms with method post and include hidden fields for searchitems and page. I would advise changing the search form method to get as it allows the bookmarking of searches and avoids complexity.