Help to send js generated text into a textarea

**EUDIS** · 11-06-2009, 07:53 PM

Hello all

I have implemented a free javascript for client-side shopping cart into my site and works great. Only, at the very end of my work i realize there is no possible way to email the cart items to me! The reason is because the script is originally written to checkout to PayPal so i guess either i have to recode something, or i gotta use some trick.

You can see the code at http://lukulos.gr/simpleCart.js
This is only because the forum does not allow long threads.

What i have to do to output the cart's content is use a div or span, like:
<div class="simpleCart_items></div>
and the data gets generated on the page automatically.

But i would like this info to be written inside a textarea, so i can use it with my cgi's form mail script.

Anyone could help?

**tripy** · 11-06-2009, 08:42 PM

It's just an idea, but as your cart is javascript based, obviously you can count on advanced javascript support when your customer use it.

So, why not design a page on your site that takes the cart content as a POST or GET parameter (and send it to you, or do whatever else) and let your cart send it via a simple AJAX request ?

Or, you could dynamically create a <form> element, and post it to your server (which is approximatively the same in this case)

Code:

<script type="text/javascript">
/*
Create a simple form with a textarea in it, and send it via POST to http://www.whatever.com/cartPost.php
*/
frm=document.createElement('form')
frm.action="http://www.whatever.com/cartPost.php"
frm.method="POST"
fld=document.createElement('textarea')
fld.appendChild(document.createTextNode(simpleCart.items))
frm.appendChild(fld)
frm.submit()
</script>

Maybe you could simply derive updateViewTotals() to have it return the HTML string, rather than directly inject it into the target html element.

**EUDIS** · 11-07-2009, 11:11 AM

Well, i tried your second suggestion. Have put this script you posted to the end of the page, just before the </body> tag, to dynamically create the textarea. Of course i didn't yet include the last line, frm.submit(), to avoid sending anything before i test it. Thing is, i guess i should actually see a textarea with the contents of the cart being generated on the page, right? However nothing happens, not even the textarea appears :/

About your last suggestion, i don't know how to do that

**tripy** · 11-07-2009, 04:44 PM

of yourse it doesn't appears.
This script create DOM elements, but they need to be appended to the paeg to see it.
They only exists in memory right now.

Add this lien at the end of the script:

Code:

document.getElementsByTagName('html')[0].appendChild(frm);

This will add the form at the end of the first <html> element of the page

**EUDIS** · 11-07-2009, 07:33 PM

Hm... Ok, now it does create a textarea. But the text in it is "[object Object]" instead of the cart's contents

**tripy** · 11-08-2009, 10:10 AM

it's because of

Code:

fld.appendChild(document.createTextNode(simpleCart.items))

SimpleCart.items is an array of js objects.
You have to create a function that will give you back the description of those objects.
Like you do into the updateViewTotals() function.