Extract Transaction's Customer Info to be written to a file?

[zcnb]

I would like to "intercept" a transaction's customer details, in order to write it to a text file.

I know that this is possible (because customer information is in the database, accessible by Zen Cart's PHP scripts, and displayable accordingly), but I don't know what is the correct approach to implement it?

Should I hack an existing PHP file to pipe this information to the text file?

Or is there already a "hook" somewhere in Zen Cart that allows me to do that more cleanly and/or elegantly?

Thanks,
Daniel

[zcnb]

I would like to tap/hook into the PHP page that sends order confirmation email, so that I can retrieve customer information from there and write it to a temporary file.

Where do I do that?

Thanks,
Daniel

[kobra]

You can look in includes/modules/checkout_process.php about line 75

//send email notifications
$order->send_order_email($insert_id, 2);
$zco_notifier->notify('NOTIFY_CHECKOUT_PROCESS_AFTER_SEND_ORDER_EMAIL');

[zcnb]

You can look in includes/modules/checkout_process.php about line 75

//send email notifications
$order->send_order_email($insert_id, 2);
$zco_notifier->notify('NOTIFY_CHECKOUT_PROCESS_AFTER_SEND_ORDER_EMAIL');

Thank you! I was mistakenly looking for it under /includes/modules/pages/checkout_process and I really needed this tip to know where to start. At least now I can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I understand that I now need to create a handler (observer class) for the NOTIFY_CHECKOUT_PROCESS_AFTER_SEND_ORDER_EMAIL event, right?

I think that the following tutorial can be helpful:

http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.p..._API_Tutorials

Any other tips you can recommend?

Perhaps there already is a handler/observer/hook in the contrib section that can save me the time of development and testing?

Thanks,
Daniel

[kobra]

You should be on the correct track with that and the correct file to start with

[zcnb]

You should be on the correct track with that and the correct file to start with

Thank you. After some learning, I managed to create an auto_loader config file in includes/auto_loader/ (first step required).

Then, the file containing the actual intelligence of my mod, needs to be created. It's an observer class file in includes/classes/observers/ in which the main trick, IMHO, is to find the right object to attach. After some learning and research (with the help of DrByte, thank you!) I concluded that that object should be 'orders' (please correct if I am wrong). Thus, the resulting observer.writecustinfo.php looks like:

<?php
/**
 * Observer class to write customer info to a temp file.
 */
class writecustinfo extends base {

 /**  constructor method !
   *  Attaches our class to the $orders class and watches for 1 notifier event.
   */
  function writecustinfo() {
    $orders->attach($this, array('NOTIFY_CHECKOUT_PROCESS_AFTER_SEND_ORDER_EMAIL'));
  }

 /**   Actual Method to write data to file
   *  Called by observed class when any of our notifiable events occur
   *
   * @param object $class
   * @param string $eventID
   */
  function writetofile(&$class, $eventID) {
    /**
    * Write the following fields to a file
    */

    orders->fields[orders_id];
    orders->fields[customers_id];
    orders->fields[customers_name];
    orders->fields[customers_company];
    orders->fields[customers_street_address];
    orders->fields[customers_suburb];
    orders->fields[customers_city];
    orders->fields[customers_postcode];
    orders->fields[customers_state];
    orders->fields[customers_country];
    orders->fields[customers_telephone];
    orders->fields[customers_email_address];
    orders->fields[customers_address_format_id];
    orders->fields[delivery_name];
    orders->fields[delivery_company];
    orders->fields[delivery_street_address];
    orders->fields[delivery_suburb];
    orders->fields[delivery_city];
    orders->fields[delivery_postcode];
    orders->fields[delivery_state];
    orders->fields[delivery_country];
    orders->fields[delivery_address_format_id];
    orders->fields[billing_name];
    orders->fields[billing_company];
    orders->fields[billing_street_address];
    orders->fields[billing_suburb];
    orders->fields[billing_city];
    orders->fields[billing_postcode];
    orders->fields[billing_state];
    orders->fields[billing_country];
  }
}
?>

Does the above make sense at all?

Do you identify fundamental flaws in the code or in my understanding of the process?

(for simplicty, I didn't include the actual file writing code, I will start working on it shortly).

Thanks,
Daniel

[DrByte]

That is the concept, yes

[zcnb]

That is the concept, yes

Concepts are great but when it comes to real life...

When I tried to implement the above using $orders->attach(), the entire store blanked! This puzzled me for a moment since the 'freeProduct' example in the Developers API Tutorial works on my system without any problem (or modification).

At first, I tried changing the $autoLoadConfig offset (aka 'action point'), in the config file, from 90 to 210, thinking that perhaps this has to do with the fact that $orders is not instantiated until offset 180. That didn't help (same exact white blank page).

So, after some research I came across this excellent thread: Use Of Notifiers - How To.

I then realized that, despite having different symptoms, I probably have the same exact problem: attempting to use a class ($orders) instead of the 'stub' notifier class, $zco_notifier. It is also the class that actually sends the notification. That solved the blanking problem!

So, I can now start working on the actual functionality of this observer.

[zcnb]

OK, I got the update() method of the observer class to act upon email confirmation and to write something to a test text file.

The only problem now is that... all $orders->fields[] elements seem to be empty.

Using SuperGlobals Plus I can see at the successful checkout page that the $orders->fields[] elements are there and contain valid and correct values. So it seems that by the time my observer class receives the NOTIFY_CHECKOUT_PROCESS_AFTER_SEND_ORDER_EMAIL notification, the $orders->fields[] array has gone???

I will try tying my observer class to NOTIFY_HEADER_START_CHECKOUT_SUCCESS to see if I can intercept that $orders->fields ...

Thanks again Kobra & DrByte for all your help and guidance. It's fun to program in such great environment.

Daniel

[DrByte]

Isn't the object named $order, not $orders ?