Perhaps your problem is understanding database normalization.

The minimal structure for a shopping cart is that the Order table holds everything that exists only once for an Order (person, shipping address, method of payment, etc), and a unique Order ID. The Order Items table holds each of the items (item ID, quantity, color, etc), as well as the ID of the order to which it belongs.

To add an item, simply insert it into the Order Items table with the proper Order ID for the current Order. To check out, select all items in the Order Items table where Order ID is your current Order ID.

You definitely don't need "a table per person"!

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

In reply to Re: settuping up pseudo tables in mysql shopping cart by merlyn
in thread setting up pseudo tables in mysql shopping cart by coldfingertips

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.