Product ID with numbers and letters

Okay, to make a story little bit shorter here is the previous thread http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=188401

What I need to do is to add thousands of products to the catalog. I got manufacturers pricing spread sheets, which I can reformat to import them into the database. Here's the question... ARI(check previous thread) using SKU, in our case it should be products_id. Some of them are just numbers, but some of them are numbers and letters for expample NN10798. Is it possible to use letters and numbers in product_id field in database?
So the link would look like this
website.com/index.php?action=buy_now&products_id=NN10798

Or is there any other way the product could be added to the shopping cart without using products_id?

I would appreciate any help and suggestions.

The product id is an auto-incrementing field in the database, and any attempt to alter it would be very risky if not impossible.

Using some other field, either existing or newly created, would be your best bet.

I've already created couple products with "custom" id and it works fine, but those were just with numbers. I'll try some with letters and numbers, to see if that's going to work. I was just wondering if there might be better options. ARI application passing link like
...buy_now&arisku=4229&arireturnurl={arireturnurl}&ariqty={aripartqty}&ariprice=139.5&aribrand=BRG&ariassemblyid=172540&ariparentassemblyid=0&aripartid=2344492

Can I create new attribute ARISKU for the product and make both links adding products to the shopping cart

for example

...buy_now&arisku=A92531GS
...buy_now&products_id=56

And they would do the same thing.

I'm not very good with MySQL , but if anyone could set the direction for where to look and what things to consider to make it work, I'd appreciate that.

Zen Cart has a products_model field. If you populate that with the SKU number, when you're inserting all their products into your database, then you could customize the code to do add-to-cart actions based on products_model instead of products_id.

DrByte:

Zen Cart has a products_model field. If you populate that with the SKU number, when you're inserting all their products into your database, then you could customize the code to do add-to-cart actions based on products_model instead of products_id.

Another thing is that there are about 16k parts in one of the manufacturers catalog, I got to upload around 20 of them. And I have no idea what might be the chance that some of the parts could have same sku...

But anyway, could you please tell me where do I look to change products_id to products_model

Easy :blush:
Just add a new file, as follows:

/includes/extra_cart_actions/buy_now_by_model_number.php

<?php
/**
 * Custom shopping Cart actions
 *
 * @package initSystem
 * @copyright Copyright 2003-2011 Zen Cart Development Team
 * @license http://www.zen-cart.com/license/2_0.txt GNU Public License V2.0
 */
if (!defined('IS_ADMIN_FLAG')) {
  die('Illegal Access');
}

/**
 * check whether an "action" has been set. And if m= is set but no products_id is set,
 * then lookup products_id from products_model (m)
 */
if (isset($_GET['action']) && $_GET['action']=='buy_now' && isset($_GET['m']) && !isset($_GET['products_id']))
{
  $sql= "select products_id from " . TABLE_PRODUCTS . " where products_model = :themodel: LIMIT 1";
  $sql = $db->bindvars($sql, ':themodel:', $_GET['m'], 'string');
  $lookup = $db->Execute($sql);
  if ($lookup->RecordCount() == 1)
  {
    $_GET['products_id'] = $lookup->fields['products_id'];
    unset($_GET['m']);
    zen_redirect(zen_href_link($goto, zen_get_all_get_params('m')));
  }
}
```Now you can use URLs like this:
index.php?action=buy_now&m=THEMODELNUMBER

.. where THEMODELNUMBER is the case-sensitive model number assigned to your products_model field in your database's products table. (Same as the model number on the admin edit-product screen)

Doc, you the best! The only thing you forgot is to close php :blush:

THANK YOU!:clap:

farmex:

Doc, you the best! The only thing you forgot is to close php :blush:Actually, that was very intentional: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=313> farmex:

THANK YOU!:clap:You're welcome.
Happy Thanksgiving.