Re: [mv] Efficient [perl] Results page

[Mike Heins <mikeh@minivend.com>]

******    message to minivend-users from Mike Heins <mikeh@minivend.com>     ******

Quoting Handytman@aol.com (Handytman@aol.com):
> 
> I have seen statements on this list, indicating that the least CPU-intensive 
> way to display search results is to write the page in perl.
> 
> This is of interest to me, as my results page must check a database and 
> display items one way if condition X is true, and differently otherwise. 
> Also, seemingly the server would rather interpolate the [item-fields] once 
> per item, and then perl could write the page to display that data two or 
> three times per item, if need be.
> 
> What I've got so far is a results page which has all the [search-list] 
> display stuff in perl tags. (Actually, I use [calc] tags.) This results in 
> one perl call per item. Since the page is called to display eight items per 
> page, that means eight perl calls per page.
> It occurs to me that one perl call per page would be better. I'm asking:
> 
> 
> How can one perl call display all the items on the results page, eliminating 
> the need for [search-list][/search-list] tags?

I do believe I have shown this one many, many, times on the list.
I don't think I have documented too much of this, though; it is one we
will get to soon.

In MV4, it is:

[perl tables="products pricing"]
	# The empty key is the default search passed in by URL or form
	my $s = $Search->{''};

	return "No search passed." if ! $s;

	# mv_results is the result array
	my $ary = $s->{mv_results};

	return "Bad search object." if ! $ary;

	return "No match." unless @$ary;

	# If you used mv_return_fields / rf, the array will contain all
	# of the fields

	# ra=yes/rf=sku,title,price will look something like:
	# [
	# 	[ '00-0011', 'Mona Lisa', 50000000 ],
	# 	[ '00-0011a', 'Gilded Frame', 1000 ],
	# 	[ 'etc.', 'etc.', 0 ],
	#
	# ]
			

	my $out = '';
	foreach $row (@$ary) {
		my ($sku, $title, $price) = @$row;
		$out .= &do_your_stuff();
		# Get a field you didn't return in the search
		$extra = tag_data('products', 'color', $sku);
		if($extra) {
		    $out .= &do_some_more();
		}
	}
	return $out;

[/perl]

You can use [mvasp] with the same stuff, and you can pass in db references
with [perl tables="products pricing etc"] if you want to use tag_data() or
other tags that use database references.

You can always use the old MV3 approach, which is somewhat easier if you
are not strong on references:

[perl]
	$string = <<EOF;
[search-list][item-code]|[item-data sometable somecol]
[/search-list]
EOF
	@items = split /\n/, $string;
	for(@items) {
		($code, $field) = split /\|/, $_;
		etc();
		etc();
	}
[/perl]

-- 
Akopia, Inc., 131 Willow Lane, Floor 2, Oxford, OH  45056
phone +1.513.523.8220 fax 7501 <heins@akopia.com>

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
-- Wernher Von Braun
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