CIS 24: CGI and Perl Programming for the Web

Functional Specification for the Digital Camera Shopper Project

Overview

For this project, you will create a web-based application that allows users to shop for digital cameras. There will be a search form where they can choose the features they want in a camera. Your application will analyze the information they submit and present a list of cameras that meet the users' criteria. Users can then pick a camera they like and add it to a virtual "shopping cart." Users should then be able to return to the search form to shop for more cameras. If users add more cameras to their shopping cart, your application must retain the information on cameras that were added to the shopping cart previously by that user. Lastly, your application should recognize returning users by means of a cookie, and make their previous shopping cart available to them.

The specifications for this project are as follows:

The Camera Search Page

1. Your camera search page must contain a form that allows users to select from the following criteria for selecting a digital camera:

   • Price: $299 or less; between $300 and $599; $600 or more
   • Built-in Flash: must have; don't care
   • LCD Viewscreen: must have; don't care
   • Picture Storage: 6 or fewer is ok; between 7 and 16 pictures; 17 or more is a must
   • Picture Resolution: 640x480; 1024x768; 1280x960; 1600x1200
   • Storage Media: SmartMedia; Compact Flash; Floppy Disc; Memory Stick
   • USB Connection: must have; don't care
   • Video Connection: must have; don't care
   • Digital Zoom: must have; don't care
   • Optical Zoom: must have; don't care

   If you want to allow the user to select multiple options for some of the criteria (e.g. SmartMedia or Compact Flash) you may do so, but this is not a requirement of the project.

2. Use a cookie to identify users when they arrive at this page. First, test for the existence of a cookie in the user's browser. If it doesn't exist, create a unique cookie that will last for 1 year.

3. Include a link that says "View Shopping Cart" that links to the Shopping Cart page.

Implementation Suggestions:

• Each of the INPUTs in the search form can be handled with radio buttons (INPUT TYPE="radio") or select boxes (SELECT). If you want to allow the user to specify more than one option for a feature, checkboxes (INPUT TYPE="checkbox") might also be useful.

• There are several different ways to generate a unique value for the cookie. One method that would be acceptable for this project is to use a datetime stamp (including seconds). Another is to use some form of counter that gets incremented with each new user (you could store the counter in its own file, or refer to the number of lines in the user data file, described in Section IV).

The Search Results Page

1. Using the criteria provided by the user, your script will run a search against this text data file. This file contains feature data on 27 digital cameras. The fields are in the same order as described above (except that the first field is the name of each camera). The fields are separated by tabs. Features coded as "0" or "1" indicate whether or not a feature is present.

2. If there are cameras that meet the user's criteria, your results page should list each camera and its attributes. If there are no cameras that meet the user's criteria, provide a statement indicating this, and provide a link back to the form so he or she can try again.

3. Hyperlink the names of each camera on the results page to point to a shopping cart script. When a user clicks one of these links, that camera will be added to his or her shopping cart. You'll need to attach a query string to the URL that contains a unique identifier for each camera.

Implementation Suggestions:

• You'll want to read the lines of the data file into an array. One approach to performing the search is to use a foreach loop to split each element of the array on the tabs, and then examine the attributes of each camera to see if they meet the user's criteria.

• For the unique identifier on the query string of the hyperlink to the shopping cart script, you could use the name of the camera, but you could run into problems with characters that are not URL safe. Another option is to use the array index position of the camera's data line.

• The key thing for you to figure out: how exactly to define the INPUT VALUEs in the search form, and how to use them as search criteria against the data.

The Shopping Cart Page

Your Shopping Cart Page does not have to allow for quantities greater than 1 for each camera, and it does not have to provide a "delete" function (i.e. you don't have to let users remove items from their carts). You can include these functions for extra credit if you wish.

Your Shopping Cart Page does have to do the following (for this page, I've incorporated the implementation suggestions into the description of the requirements):

1. When users come to this page via the link on the Camera Search Page, they are coming to view the current contents of their shopping cart. You should have a text data file that contains a line for each user (the user data file). The line should contain the value of each user's cookie, and an identifier for each camera he or she has selected (from this session and from previous sessions). Use the value of the cookie in the user's browser to determine which line contains his or her information, and display the names of the camera in his or her shopping cart.

2. When users come to this page via the links on the Search Results Page, they are adding the selected camera to their shopping cart. Your application needs to add the appropriate camera information to that user's line in your user data file. You then need to display the shopping cart contents as described above.

3. This page should provide a link back to the Camera Search Page.

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