Collections

As you might have seen, the Cart::content() and Cart::get() methods both return a Collection, a CartCollection and a CartRowCollection.

These Collections extends the ‘native’ Laravel 4 Collection class, so all methods you know from this class can also be used on your shopping cart. With some addition to easily work with your carts content.

Instances

Now the packages also supports multiple instances of the cart. The way this works is like this:

You can set the current instance of the cart with Cart::instance('newInstance'), at that moment, the active instance of the cart is newInstance, so when you add, remove or get the content of the cart, you work with the newInstance instance of the cart. If you want to switch instances, you just call Cart::instance('otherInstance') again, and you’re working with the otherInstance again.

So a little example:

Cart::instance('shopping')->add('192ao12', 'Product 1', 1, 9.99);

// Get the content of the 'shopping' cart
Cart::content();

Cart::instance('wishlist')->add('sdjk922', 'Product 2', 1, 19.95, array('size' => 'medium'));

// Get the content of the 'wishlist' cart
Cart::content();

// If you want to get the content of the 'shopping' cart again...
Cart::instance('shopping')->content();

// And the count of the 'wishlist' cart again
Cart::instance('wishlist')->count();

N.B. Keep in mind that the cart stays in the last set instance for as long as you don’t set a different one during script execution.

N.B.2 The default cart instance is called main, so when you’re not using instances,Cart::content(); is the same as Cart::instance('main')->content().

Models

A new feature is associating a model with the items in the cart. Let’s say you have a Product model in your application. With the new associate() method, you can tell the cart that an item in the cart, is associated to the Product model.

That way you can access your model right from the CartRowCollection!

Here is an example:

<?php 

/**
 * Let say we have a Product model that has a name and description.
 */

Cart::associate('Product')->add('293ad', 'Product 1', 1, 9.99, array('size' => 'large'));


$content = Cart::content();


foreach($content as $row)
{
    echo 'You have ' . $row->qty . ' items of ' . $row->product->name . ' with description: "' . $row->product->description . '" in your cart.';
}

The key to access the model is the same as the model name you associated (lowercase). The associate() method has a second optional parameter for specifying the model namespace.

Exceptions

The Cart package will throw exceptions if something goes wrong. This way it’s easier to debug your code using the Cart package or to handle the error based on the type of exceptions. The Cart packages can throw the following exceptions:

Exception Reason
ShoppingcartInstanceException When no instance is passed to the instance() method
ShoppingcartInvalidItemException When a new product misses one of it’s arguments (id, name, qty, price)
ShoppingcartInvalidPriceException When a non-numeric price is passed
ShoppingcartInvalidQtyException When a non-numeric quantity is passed
ShoppingcartInvalidRowIDException When the $rowId that got passed doesn’t exists in the current cart
ShoppingcartUnknownModelException When an unknown model is associated to a cart row

Events

The cart also has events build in. There are five events available for you to listen for.

Event Fired
cart.add($item) When a single item is added
cart.batch($items) When a batch of items is added
cart.update($rowId) When an item in the cart is updated
cart.remove($rowId) When an item is removed from the cart
cart.destroy() When the cart is destroyed

Example

Below is a little example of how to list the cart content in a table:

// Controller

Cart::add('192ao12', 'Product 1', 1, 9.99);
Cart::add('1239ad0', 'Product 2', 2, 5.95, array('size' => 'large'));

// View

<table>
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>Product</th>
            <th>Qty</th>
            <th>Item Price</th>
            <th>Subtotal</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>

    <tbody>

    <?php foreach($cart as $row) :?>

        <tr>
            <td>
                <p><strong><?php echo $row->name;?></strong></p>
                <p><?php echo ($row->options->has('size') ? $row->options->size : '');?></p>
            </td>
            <td><input type="text" value="<?php echo $row->qty;?>"></td>
            <td>$<?php echo $row->price;?></td>
            <td>$<?php echo $row->subtotal;?></td>
       </tr>

    <?php endforeach;?>

    </tbody>
</table>