[not a bug] Checkout Shipping's header_php.php

[conor]

Hi,

When developing a new shipping module for Zen Cart I found a bug in the file:

includes/modules/pages/checkout_shipping/header_php.php

Although Zen Cart allows the usage of several shipping methods by each shipping module, it would appear that no-one has ever used this functionality as, when submitting the checkout shipping page, the customer's selection is ignored and the first shipping method for the selected shipping module is always chosen!

It's a very simple bug to fix and I'm happy to include a diff patch for it below...

I'd appreciate it if this could be updated in the next version of ZC so that I don't have to have instructions in our new shipping module on how to modify this core file!

The patch for this is as follows, please e-mail me if you want a copy of a freshly updated ZC1.3.7 file:

@@ -144,16 +144,26 @@
           } else {
             $quote = $shipping_modules->quote($method, $module);
           }
           if (isset($quote['error'])) {
             $_SESSION['shipping'] = '';
           } else {
-            if ( (isset($quote[0]['methods'][0]['title'])) && (isset($quote[0]['methods'][0]['cost'])) ) {
+            // Identify the shipping method selected by the user (some shipping modules can have
+            // several methods/ways in their quote).
+            $shipping_method_index = 0;
+            $num_shipping_methods = sizeof($quote[0]['methods']);
+            for ($i = 0; $i < $num_shipping_methods; $i++) {
+              if (($module . '_' . $quote[0]['methods'][$i]['id']) == $_SESSION['shipping']) {
+                $shipping_method_index = $i;
+                break;
+              }
+            }
+           if ( (isset($quote[0]['methods'][$shipping_method_index]['title'])) && (isset($quote[0]['methods'][$shipping_method_index]['cost'])) ) {
               $_SESSION['shipping'] = array('id' => $_SESSION['shipping'],
-                                'title' => (($free_shipping == true) ?  $quote[0]['methods'][0]['title'] : $quote[0]['module'] . ' (' . $quote[0]['methods'][0]['title'] . ')'),
-                                'cost' => $quote[0]['methods'][0]['cost']);
+                                'title' => (($free_shipping == true) ?  $quote[0]['methods'][$shipping_method_index]['title'] : $quote[0]['module'] . ' (' . $quote[0]['methods'][$shipping_method_index]['title'] . ')'),
+                                'cost' => $quote[0]['methods'][$shipping_method_index]['cost']);
 
               zen_redirect(zen_href_link(FILENAME_CHECKOUT_PAYMENT, '', 'SSL'));
             }
           }
         } else {
           $_SESSION['shipping'] = false; 

Hope you find this helpful!

All the best...

Conor
ceon

[DrByte]

Although Zen Cart allows the usage of several shipping methods by each shipping module, it would appear that no-one has ever used this functionality as, when submitting the checkout shipping page, the customer's selection is ignored and the first shipping method for the selected shipping module is always chosen!

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.
USPS and UPS and others offer multiple shipping choices for ground/air/express/etc, and when the customer selects one of these, it properly uses the selected choice, passing both the description and the rate over to the subtotal calculations and into the final invoice, etc.

Or are you saying something *else* is happening?

[conor]

Hi,

Or are you saying something *else* is happening?

I can't get either of those two modules to work here but it does appear that UPS at least in theory supports multiple shipping methods.

However, the code in header_php.php of checkout_shipping, since version 1.2.x right up to 1.3.7 discards the user's selection on progression from checkout_shipping to checkout_payment...

This can be clearly seen by even just the following snippet:

'cost' => $quote[0]['methods'][0]['cost']); 

As you can see, ZC wrongly selects the first shipping method for the quote (the second [0]) regardless of which method the user may have selected.

I'm stumped as to why no-one would have noticed this with the UPS module but upon writing the new Region Tables module it was something that I found straight away... if there are 3 shipping methods on offer by the module, no matter what one you pick at the shipping stage, ZC selects the first. Which is obvious given the [0]!

Don't really know what else to say except that "it can't possibly work for anyone"! :)

All the best...

Conor

[conor]

Hi,

Time to put my tail between my legs here....

I missed the fact that the shipping class' "quote" method only retrieves the quote for the currently selected module at the submission of the checkout_shipping stage, and that at this point it passes the name of the method the chosen shipping module should return a single quote for.

I was mistakenly returning all the quotes for the method and then using the user's selection on submission of the checkout_shipping page to extract the selected quote only.

I should have looked into how things worked a little closer, I got blinkered by the fact that I don't tend to have methods return multiple arrays in one place and single values in another... it's not the worst thing in the world but, obviously, not intuitive for outside developers.

As I said at the start though, my tail is between my legs, your code works just fine and I'll update the new Region Tables module to operate in the same way.

This bug can be disregarded now. :)

All the best...

Conor

[DrByte]

No sweat ... just wanted to be sure we were both looking at the right thing ;)