help with multi dimentional arrays - php

Question

i am building a shopping cart and cant figure out how to store something like this into a session.
[product_id1] = quantity;
[product_id1] = size
[product_id1] = color;
[product_id2] = quantity;
[product_id2] = size;
[product_id2] = color;
...
etc
so when a user select the quantity of a product then selects its color then selects to add to a cart i want the items selected to be added into a session and each item added to the cart , its attributes selected to be added into a session. how would i do this?
many many thanks.

Answer 1

$_SESSION['productid1']['quantity'] = 15;
$_SESSION['productid1']['size'] = 30;
$_SESSION['productid1']['color'] = 'red';
$_SESSION['productid2']['quantity'] = 35;
$_SESSION['productid2']['size'] = 2;
$_SESSION['productid2']['color'] = 'blue';
Don't forget to put session_start() at the beginning of every page to carry the sessions through the pages.

Answer 2

$item[$catalog_number]['quantity'] = 1;
$item[$catalog_number]['size'] = 'XL';
$item[$catalog_number]['color'] = 'yellow';
$_SESSION['cart'][] = $item;
unset($item);
Repeat for each item you are adding. Alternatively you could do:
$item['catalog_number'] = 'ABC-123';
$item['quantity'] = 1;
$item['size'] = 'XL';
$item['color'] = 'yellow';
$_SESSION['cart'][] = $item;
unset($item);
Both will work, just make sure you are consistent. Use only one or the other.

Answer 3

You should create an array in session array for your products:
$_SESSION['products'] = Array();
then you can put products there like this:
$product = Array();
$product['quantity'] = 6;
$product['size'] = 'XXL';
$product['color'] = 'blue';
$_SESSION['products'][] = $product;
$product = Array();
$product['quantity'] = 2;
$product['size'] = 'XL';
$product['color'] = 'blue';
$_SESSION['products'][] = $product;
this will give you numbered array, if you want an associative array, you will just put identifier into []:
$_SESSION['products']['productID'] = $product;