Constants for procedural and object oriented code

[Dave224]

I'm working on a mod that displays the correct shipping address for store pickup instead of the customers address in order confirmation, invoices, packing slips, etc. We occasionally go to shows and other events where customers can pickup orders, so the "shipping address" for store pickup can change. We do not want to change the official store address in the configuration table.

I've got it working pretty well using a special row of the address book that is accessed whenever store pickup shipping method is chosen, but I've had to hard code certain store pickup address data. I'd like to make this data defined constants that I can change for each show or event venue, but the normal define function won't work in methods within a class. I'm working in the order class. But I also need some of the constants in procedural code.

Having the same constants in define statements for procedural code and in const statements within a class for OO code seems poor programming and I'm not sure it would work. Querying the database multiple times to lookup constants using zen_get_configuration_key_value seems inefficient, or to query a custom table seems to be overkill.

Is there a way out of this mess? Or am I forced to use the database to store the constants?

[Dave224]

I found the solution. It turns out that normal defines can be used. Apparently, in my testing, the constants defined were not loaded before they were needed. I had placed them in the store pickup shipping module language file. When I placed them in a file in the include/extra_datafiles, they worked fine, both within the order class and in procedural code.

In addition, I found out that you do not need the zen_get_configuration_key_value function to access constants in the configuartion table. You can access them directly in both the order class and in other procedural code.

So my solution is to use normal defines, located in the proper location to solve my problem.

Dave

[DrByte]

Right.

Configuration table settings are all automatically defined as constants. No need to query the db at all for them.

Shipping module language files are loaded just before the shipping module loads, so constants in the language file should be ready. But if you're doing something that fires the module uniquely in other ways then using extra_datafiles or extra_configures would be fine.