Restrict osCommerce shopping cart to processing transactions

[DebP]

I just signed up with a new web hosting service, and as part of their service they provide the osCommerce shopping cart. As I understand it this product is normally used to both generate catalog pages that display a merchant's wares to his customers, and to process the customer's order. However I already have catalog pages that I'm pleased with. What I would like to do is just link the form elements of my pages into your shopping cart, so when the customer presses "Add to Cart", your product would manage the shopping cart and process the order.

 

I have a fairly solid knowledge of Perl and MySQL, but I don't know PHP. The catalog pages are currently generated via a Perl script by processing a couple different tables in a database. While generating these pages I believe that I could generate a text file fairly easily that could be uploaded via phpMyAdmin to my new web hosting service for use with your shopping cart. However while generating my static HTML catalog pages, I would need to know what values to assign to my form elements so they would map to the appropriate elements in your shopping cart product.

 

Is this even possible? (I ask because I looked at another shopping cart that randomly assigned form values, which meant that it was impossible to automate the generation of my pages and use them in conjunction with their shopping cart). If it is possible, can you direct me to some online documentation that describes the API?

 

Thanks in advance.

[mattice]

However I already have catalog pages that I'm pleased with. What I would like to do is just link the form elements of my pages into your shopping cart, so when the customer presses "Add to Cart", your product would manage the shopping cart and process the order.

That's a bit of overkill then for just the processing....

I'd think there would be easier solutions.

 

My advise: Don't do it. Go for osCommerce as a complete package or look for something else, more compact.

 

By the way if you are a Perl person you will pickup PHP real easy.

Give it a go.

 

Regards,

Mattice