Help in Writing a Shipping Module

[bkowal]

I have been tasked with writing a new shipping module for a client.

Functionally, it shouldn't be to difficult. I need to take the shopping cart info (weights), call an existing web service to retrieve the shipping cost, and display it to the user. After the order it accepted I will need to call another service to actually post the shipment information.

It should be know that I come from the Visual Studio/C#/ASP.NET world.
The PHP stuff all looks familiar, not to worried about that. However, I am having a couple problems.
First I cannot find ANY API information on how to write a plugin. The Wiki page stuff is pretty much useless. It also would be nice to get a list of available session variables, particularly the 'cart' object so I know what have to work with. Guessing property names just doesn't work

I have taken a copy of an existing shipping module (zones.php), and have managed to install and run it. However, how would one go about debugging such a creature? I am using Visual Studio Code as an editor. It seems that any code changes that I make are not reflected in the runtime in ZenCart. Currently I am stuck.

Looking for any help or advice on how I can move forward,

Thanks,
Bryan

[carlwhat]

b,
so you have gone to admin -> modules -> shipping and selected your shipping module and it is now successfully installed with a little green circle next to it?

with regards to debugging, i'm sure everyone has their own way/process of doing things. for a development environment in php, i like the following tool:

http://dbug.ospinto.com/

one file and you can place it in /includes/extra_configures/ directory and then it will autoload.

within your new module, you can then add the following code:

new dBug();
die(__FILE__ . ':' . __LINE__);

within the dBug you can add any object that you are interested in seeing, ie $_SESSION. the die statement will also ensure that your code is getting hit.... as will the dBug.

hope that helps.

good luck!

[mc12345678]

There's also a plugin available called superglobals that allows display of session related information and others as made available through the admin.

Each of the shipping modules has a particular focus and thus the associated functions that are to return information may be different. Typically in developing a shipping module, it would be suggested as you have started to use an existing method at least to understand some of what is expected, but also to identify in the code where it is/could be accessed. Identifying those touch points helps to determine what data needs to be available.

Depending on the options you are expecting to handle might suggest also looking at more advanced shipping modules like usps, ups or FedEx as these provide multiple rates from which a visitor can select within a single shipping module.

[bkowal]

b,
so you have gone to admin -> modules -> shipping and selected your shipping module and it is now successfully installed with a little green circle next to it?

with regards to debugging, i'm sure everyone has their own way/process of doing things. for a development environment in php, i like the following tool:

http://dbug.ospinto.com/

one file and you can place it in /includes/extra_configures/ directory and then it will autoload.

within your new module, you can then add the following code:

new dBug();
die(__FILE__ . ':' . __LINE__);

within the dBug you can add any object that you are interested in seeing, ie $_SESSION. the die statement will also ensure that your code is getting hit.... as will the dBug.

hope that helps.

good luck!

Thanks for the input so far. I have been making slow progress. My last hurdle was calling our .NET web service to retrieve shipping rates using the SoapClient. Finally, I go that working.

Yes, I am trying to model it after the FedEx module since it seems to have many of the features I am looking for.

Bryan