Avoiding duplicate serial generation

-- Browser(s) name and version -- : Chrome
-- Error-message(debug-mod must be tuned on) -- : Not an error

Hi,
I have a custom serial generator which creates serials for products.
However, and order can have the same product on multiple lines because we use custom fields.

e.g.
Line Item 1: Qty 2, Product 123, CustomField: ABC (serial gen CustomGenPack attached)
Line Item 2: Qty 1, Product 123, CustomField: DEF (serial gen CustomGenPack attached)

The desired behaviour would to generate 3 serials. 2 for line item 1, and one for line item 2

The problem is, the serial generator is run twice, once for each instance of the product, with the result that I actually generate 6 serials - 3 for each order line.

How can this be avoided? Is there any way to identify which order line is being called within the serial generator?

Many thanks,
Oliver

Hi Jerome,

I'm not sure I follow... why would this be of any use?
The randomgen.php code doesn't even reference the $order parameter that's passed into generate().
Instead it generates a number of serials based on the "$quantity" parameter which I've never been able to understand how this can relate to the specific order.

Is $quantity the same value as $order->cart->order_product_quantity for a specific line item? Or is it the quantity value that's specified in the licence pack of the product page? Or something else?

I'm happy to look through code examples as a form of documentation when they're relevant and easy to follow, but I'm not sure the randomgen works in this instance. If there's another example I can follow I'll happily have a go.

Many thanks,
Oliver

Hi Jerome,

Sorry - using the randomgen creates (in the case of my example) 3 serials - which is what one would expect. My issue here is that the $quantity parameter may well represent the number of keys to generate for each order line, but how does the generate method /know/ which order line is being processed?

Here's my (heavily redacted) generator function which hopefully give you a better idea of what I'm trying to accomplish.

Essentially, the custom field "customfield" is essential to the serial generation logic.

public function generate(&$pack, &$order, $quantity, &$serials) {
		if(!isset($pack->licencegen))
			return;

		parent::pluginParams($pack->licencegen);

		if(!empty($order->cart->products))
		{
			foreach($order->cart->products as $p)
			{
				if($p->product_id == $pack->main_product_id)
				{
					// Read the custom field
					if( isset( $p->customfield ))
					{
						$licKeyData = $p->customfield;
						$licKeyQty = $p->order_product_quantity;
					}
					else
						return false;
					
					// Create a set of serials for each product line/quantity			
					// THIS OBVIOUSLY ISN'T THE KEY GENERATION CODE ;)
					$serials[] = sprintf( "Key extension %d x %s<br/>", $licKeyQty, $licKeyData );
				}
			}
		}
		else
		{
			return false;
		}
		return true;
	}

Hi Jerome,

I've read through the pointsgen code and once all of the complexity of the serial generation is removed it appears to boil down to:

*PSEUDOCODE*
do "$quantity" times:
  create a serial (how do I refer to a SPECIFIC order line so that I can use the custom data in the serial generation code?)
  if in test mode:
    do for each $product (order line):
       if the $product matches the pack $product
         add extraData to the serialObjs object 
  add the serial to serials[]
  return either serialObjs or serials[]

I'm sorry Jerome, but this variety of "support" is utterly pointless. If you can help, then help. If you can't, or don't want to, then just say so and we can all move on. It's like when people ask a question on StackOverflow, and other people reply with "But why would you want to do that?! Do this instead!!" While I appreciate that people sometimes ask dumb questions, the real answer to that is often "Because after more careful thought than you have given about the problem, there's a good reason for my question, so either answer the question, or if you have nothing useful to add, don't answer at all."

Instead, you have:

• Told me to read documentation that doesn't help - the docs on the generate function you link to are abysmal. You may as well document it with "look through the various generator methods and try to work it out for yourself".
• Failed to respond to the direct questions I've asked, such as "when is generate() called" and "how is $quantity related to each call"
• Told me to look harder at a piece of example code... well, I did... before I posted my reply. And the code does not help in the slightest. Instead, you're referring to a chunk of "test" code that iterates through product order lines checking to see if the $pack product ID matches the order line product ID. As I've said repeatedly - in my use case - the product order lines are THE SAME product ID, but using different custom field data. Your example only works on *different* product IDs.
• Failed to read my own example code, where I'm doing pretty much what you say about processing the cart data already
• Continue to bang on about using $quantity when I've already shown in tests that this cannot be used unless you can identify explicitly which product line the generate() function is being called against

Hi Jerome,

You might want a bigger spade as the whole you're digging is getting bigger with each post. The irony is all yours.

First of all, I explicitly said in my first post this is not an "error" (which I think most people would take as synonymous with "bug" in this context).
Secondly, I'm not asking for you to do custom development or services - I've written the generator myself - I just want you to properly support your product by documenting its essential working and behaviour properly. That is assuming the HikaSerial product page is suggesting user custom plugins are supported? ("Use plugins to have a custom generation and custom display")
Thirdly, as I replied more than once, the randomgen and pointsgen examples don't cover my use case (so are, in this case, largely irrelevant). As I also pointed out in my previous posts, I have *carefully* examined pointsgen (I printed it out, and took a pen to all of the unnecessary code to leave what might be relevant, and concluded that it didn't help.)

Correct, I'm on an old version of HikaSerial, but if this is the quality of support one gets, why would anyone extend their support after initial purchase? Honestly, if your first post had been "I can't provide support because you're support period has expired" then this would have been a better experience.

I've sorted out my issue with what feels like a hack, but it works. If anyone happens to come across this thread with a similar issue I'd be more than happy to explain where the HikaSerial plugin is deficient and how I've handled my specific requirement.

Despite the implication that custom serial plugins are "self support" - Jerome - if I upgrade from 1.10.4 to 2.1.1 will this break anything?