Product information from module

[martynj1980]

Hi, could anyone advise me on what would be the best way to get product info such as price and description and display it on a module in the left/right column on the product page.

 

Can a module access the smarty vars that are assigned to the product tpl?

 

or would I need to create a module that calls the information?

 

My programming skills are not very good but from looking at the existing modules would code like the following work:

 

public function hookRightColumn($params)
{
 global $smarty;

 $id_product = (int)(Tools::getValue('id_product'));
 $product = new Product((int)($id_product));
 if (!$product)
  return;
 $smarty->assign(array('product' => $product));
 return $this->display(__FILE__, 'blockproductinfo.tpl');
}

 

Many thanks

[Dh42]

Look at the source on the specials and new products modules, they should give you everything you need.

[martynj1980]

Will do. I guess there is no way to get values already assigned to smarty in the product.tpl file?

[martynj1980]

I have managed to get a little further with this but I am stuck on a problem and can't see what I am doing wrong. Here is my code:

 

public function hookRightColumn($params)
{
 global $smarty;

 $id_product = (int)(Tools::getValue('id_product'));
 if (!$id_product)
  return;
 $product = new Product((int)($id_product), false, (int)($params['cookie']->id_lang));
 $smarty->assign('product', $product);
 //$smarty->assign('productname', $product->name);

 return $this->display(__FILE__, 'prodinfo.tpl');
}

 

When I try to access the $product array in the template using {$product.name|escape:html:'UTF-8'} my page does not load.

 

If i uncomment //$smarty->assign('productname', $product->name); then I can get at the product name by using {$productname|escape:html:'UTF-8'}

 

Can anyone see why I get an error when trying to get at the $product array ?

 

Thanks

[martynj1980]

OK I have figured this one out now, here is my code:

 

public function hookRightColumn($params)
{
 global $smarty;

 $id_product = (int)(Tools::getValue('id_product'));
 if (!$product = new Product((int)($id_product), false, (int)($params['cookie']->id_lang)))
  return;
 $smarty->assign('product', $product);

 return $this->display(__FILE__, 'prodinfo.tpl');
}

 

and to access the $product vars in a template I use: {$product->name|escape:'htmlall':'UTF-8'}

 

I have a question though, is this the best way to achieve this? It just seems a little wasteful having to call the product class twice in one page to access information that may already be available. How would this effect performance on a site with a large product database and high usage?