Re: CommonAdjust (driving me batty, Help please)

["Rob Zimmerman" <rob@readysite.net>]

******    message to minivend-users from "Rob Zimmerman" <rob@readysite.net>     ******

Mike,

> I think you are making a "reflex" bash on the documentation.  While it
> may not be very well written, what do you mean "what else it is used
> for and how?" What do you think a key is used for when combined with a
> table and a column? Perhaps I should include a link to a database primer
> at the head of every paragraph. 8-)

I suppose I asked for that one :-) Sorry..... I tried using it as a database key 
but when table:column:key is used as a chained settor I kept getting a return 
of 0 so it always defaulted to ;products:price. I need to word these things 
better, you've answered my problem below....

> And I really don't encourage use of MV tags within pricing routines for
> most people. If it is done poorly (meaning with [if ... ], [loop ...]
> and such) the catalog will slow to a crawl. So I don't go into great
> detail because it is not a wise idea unless you know exactly what you
> are doing..........

Yes I found this out the hard way.....thinking I could run [item-field] through 
this not knowing what I was doing....I guess that is why I was looking for 
more examples....but I understand now that this is showing us  the 
possiblilties and is not a userguide. This has re-affirmed my "learn perl in 
21days" project. Been putting this off way to long....I guess I am over my 
"Bat Book"(sendmail) experience. 

 >...... I would bet not more than a couple of people can visualize what you 
 >are talking about because you have not described the data structures at
 >all. I know what "MixMatch over multiple groups" means but I am not sure
 >too many other people do.

This explains why nobody is answering me.....I've been trying for a month....


> If you wanted to do just a simple MixMatch, then a little thing like:
> 
> UserTag mix-match Order number
> UserTag mix-match Routine <<EOR
> sub {
> 	my $nitems = shift;
> 	my $ca_string = 'products:price';
> 	my $level;
> 	my @breaks = ( 5, 10, 25 );
> 	foreach $level ( @breaks ) {
> 		last if $nitems < $level;
> 		$ca_string = "pricing:q$level";
> 	}
> 	return $ca_string;
> }
> EOR
> 
> CommonAdjust   "[mix-match number='[nitems]']" ;products:price
> 
> Of course this type of thing can be expanded infinitely. Be careful
> on your DB accesses though, or performaance goes out the window.
> You don't want to use [item-price ....] on your search lists if you do
> pricing like this and hit the database at all. Use [currency][item-field
> price][/currency] instead.

This is what I am looking for! Eureka!  Who do I make the check out for? :-)

I spent all last week studying the CommonAdjust section of the docs and 
tried all sorts of scenarios in my Catalog.cfg, products.asc and pricing.asc. It 
is very obvious you have worked hard on this. I would like to think I have a 
better understanding of how powerful commonadjust is becuse of the chained 
settors you allow. I  cant imagine ever needing so many variations....

Please dont take anything I say about the documents personally, although I 
understand why you might, I was trying to get some examples from anyone 
else on the list that had used those 'settors'.  I "assumed" that why nobody 
was answering my commonadjust questions was either no one knew what I 
was talking about OR that sometimes its better not to answer these 
questions if you think the person will learn a little more by pushing on....I 
would like to think the later was my case :-) as that is actually what has 
happened.... oh....and thanks for the "smack upside the head".....now I am 
paying attention ;-/

Many thanks for your efforts,

Rob
-----------
ps.... I have sent your sig around the globe.... 2 funny...

> I worked very hard on CommonAdjust chained costing because I wanted to
> provide a high-performance method for doing complex pricing, shipping,
> and taxing. I think it succeeds there, but that it will take time for
> people to learn to use it. When I get the new UserTag repository up I
> hope this will be the kind of thing that goes there.
> 
-

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