icupgrade(8)

icupgrade - Interchange Upgrade Guide This document contains, in rough form, notes on upgrading from Minivend 3 to Minivend 4, and Minivend 4 to Interchange. This document describes features of Interchange 4.8 that have been deprecated. Any use of these features should be discontinued. In most cases we have provided an alternative mechanism to accomplish the same results. These deprecated features may be removed at some point in the future. You should change to the new mechanism to avoid breakage.
Deprecated Features Previous to Interchange 4 This section needs some serious work. interchange.PL 308,313

        if($path =~ s:/(.*)::) {
                $cart = $1;
                if($cart =~ s:/(.*)::) {
                        $page = $1;
                }
        }

interchange.PL 321,323

        $CGI::values{mv_nextpage} = $CGI::values{mv_orderpage}
                                                                ⎪⎪ find_special_page('order')
                if ! $CGI::values{mv_nextpage};

interchange.PL 493

                        HTML::Entities::decode($value) if $decode;

interchange.PL 854,855

                                        $CGI::values{mv_nextpage} = $CGI::values{mv_orderpage}
                                                if $CGI::values{mv_orderpage};

intechange.PL 1552,1579

        ROUTINES: {
                last ROUTINES unless index($Vend::FinalPath, '/process/') == 0;
                while ($Vend::FinalPath =~ s:/process/(locale⎪language⎪currency)/([^/]*)/:/process/:) {
                        $::Scratch->{"mv_$1"} = $2;
                }
                $Vend::FinalPath =~ s:/process/page/:/:;
        }
        my $locale;
        if($locale = $::Scratch->{mv_language}) {
                $Global::Variable->{LANG}
                        = $::Variable->{LANG} = $locale;
        }

        if ($Vend::Cfg->{Locale}                                                                and
                $locale = $::Scratch->{mv_locale}       and
                defined $Vend::Cfg->{Locale_repository}->{$locale}
                )
        {
                $Global::Variable->{LANG}
                                = $::Variable->{LANG}
                                = $::Scratch->{mv_language}
                                = $locale
                         if ! $::Scratch->{mv_language};
                Vend::Util::setlocale(  $locale,
                                                                ($::Scratch->{mv_currency} ⎪⎪ undef),
                                                                { persist => 1 }                                                        );
        }

lib/Vend/Interpolate.pm 2808

        list_compat($opt->{prefix}, \$text);

lib/Vend/Interpolate.pm 3538

        list_compat($opt->{prefix}, \$text);

lib/Vend/Interpolate.pm 3874

        list_compat($opt->{prefix}, \$page);

lib/Vend/Interpolate.pm 3270,3271

        $text =~ /^\s*\[sort\s+.*/si
                and $opt->{sort} = find_sort(\$text);

lib/Vend/Order.pm 867,868

    $body = readin($::Values->{mv_order_report})
                if $::Values->{mv_order_report};

lib/Vend/Order.pm 1030

                        $::Values->{"mv_error_$var"} = $message;

Interchange 4 Deprecated Features The send_mail routine has been replaced by the Vend::Mail::send routine. if [item-price] suddenly turns 0, check PriceField in the catalog.cfg
minivend.cfg Remove references to MiniMate. Add this line to minivend.cfg:

#include lib/UI/ui.cfg

Make sure the files catalog_before.cfg and catalog_after.cfg are there, or add their contents to etc/your_cat_name.before and etc/your_cat_name.after to it only for some catalogs.
Access Manager You need to get the minimate.asc file renamed to access.asc and add the following fields to the first line:

groups last_login name password

Remove these catalog.cfg lines:

        Variable            MINIMATE_META   mv_metadata
        Variable            MINIMATE_TABLE  minimate
        Database            minimate        minimate.asc      TAB

Add this one:

        Database            affiliate    affiliate.txt     TAB

Authentication for admin users is now done from a separate table than customers, and passwords are encrypted.
Database Editing Update the mv_metadata.asc file as appropriate.
Order Manager Some things that are needed for the order manager: Add these fields to transactions:

    affiliate  approx. char(32)
    archived   char(1)
    campaign   approx. char(32)
    comments   blob/text
    complete   char(1)
    deleted    char(1)
    order_wday char(10)
    order_ymd  char(8)
    po_number  approx. char(32)

Add these fields to transactions:

    affiliate  approx. char(32)
    campaign   approx. char(32)

Remove this field from userdb:

mv_credit_card_info Add these fields to userdb:

inactive char(1) credit_limit char(14) or decimal(12,2) dealer char(3) Create the directory 'logs'. Create the directory 'orders' if it doesn't already exist. Update your order routes to those in the Interchange distribution. Note that the route log_entry is necessary if you want to enter orders from the Interchange UI. Update the etc/log_transaction file. Add the etc/log_entry file. Add this to catalog.cfg:

    ## Don't want people setting their credit_limit directly
    UserDB default scratch "credit_limit dealer"

Affiliates Add a tab-delimited affiliate table:

affiliate name campaigns join_date url timeout active password

You can find a recommended database configuration in foundation/dbconf/*/affiliate.*.
Page Editor Add the directories 'templates' and 'backup'. Copy the contents of the Interchange simple/templates to templates.
Item Editor Add a merchandising table with the following fields:

Database merchandising merchandising.txt __SQLDSN__ Database merchandising DEFAULT_TYPE text

sku char(32) featured char(32) banner_text banner_image blurb_begin blurb_end timed_promotion char(16) start_date char(24) finish_date char(24) upsell_to cross_sell cross_category char(64) others_bought times_ordered

Index the fields with char(*) types. You can find the recommended database configuration in foundation/dbconf/*/merchandising.*
Preferences Editor (KNAR) Create the tab-delimited file variable.txt with these fields:

code Variable pref_group

Add this as the *first* line of catalog.cfg:

VariableDatabase variable
Route Editor Create the file route.txt with these fields:

        code
        report
        receipt
        encrypt_program
        encrypt
        pgp_key
        pgp_cc_key
        cyber_mode
        credit_card
        profile
        inline_profile
        email
        attach
        counter
        increment
        continue
        partial
        supplant
        track
        errors_to

Add this line in catalog.cfg:

RouteDatabase route
Transactions database The back office UI should work fine for editing database tables. Obviously the things which are specific to the order transaction setup will break unless you have the right fields, but even these can be controlled by configuring the UI.

Add a new field to transaction.txt called 'archived'. There were big changes from Minivend 3 to Minivend 4, some of which were incompatible.

Many things were removed as redundant, deprecated, or just plain crufty:
Nested [loop]s MV3 used a different scheme for creating nested loop lists:

[loop with="-a"* arg="item item item" search="se=whatever"]

allowed you to refer to the nested values with a [loop-code-a] construct. In Minivend 4, the form is:

        [loop prefix=size list="Small Medium Large"]
                [loop prefix=color list="Red White Blue"]
                        [color-code]-[size-code]<BR>
                [/loop]
                <P>
        [/loop]

All frame features removed Frames are now managed by the user in HTML.
Tags removed buttonbar Replace with Variable defined in catalog.cfg. buttonbar was previously used as an SSI-like command for catalog-wide standardized features like navigation bars. In the 3.x catalog.cfg the ButtonBars parameter defines a list of html snippets, like

ButtonBars header.html footer.html copyright.html

So [buttonbar 0] substitutes 'header.html', [buttonbar 1] substitutes 'footer.html', etc.

In 4.x catalog.cfg, define variables, like

Variable HEADER <pages/header Variable FOOTER <pages/footer Variable COPYRIGHT <pages/copyright

Then replace all occurences of [buttonbar 0] with __HEADER__, [buttonbar 1] with __FOOTER__, etc.

Note that the old header.html, footer.html, etc. contained html code, but were not actually html pages with <html><body> etc, tags. Thus the current practice is to use filenames with no extension or perhaps '.txt' to differentiate them from pages. random Replace with [ad random=1] or custom code. See the [ad] tag docs. Random and rotate were used to place random or rotating regions on pages, such as banner ads.

The Random durective in catalog.cfg defines the numbered HTML snippet files, similar to buttonbars above. rotate Replace with [ad ...]. See [random] above. help No replacement. Use data functions or variables. body Replace with templates. Again the body tag [body 1] etc. defines numbered body definitions that could be applied site-wide. However, in this case minivend actually built up the <body ....> substitution using the Mv_* directives in catalog.cfg. finish_order [finish_order] was a conditional tag; if the basket contained anything a 'checkout' graphic would be displayed. No replacement; use [if items]Message[/if]. last_page No replacement - this can be emulated by setting a scratch variable on one page, then using it to build the return URL. item-link No replacement, just use [page [item-code]]. loop-link No replacement, just use [page [loop-code]]. sql-link No replacement, just use [page [sql-code]]. accessories Replace with normal data functions. Compatibility routines Compatibility routines for many popular tags like [random], [rotate], etc. are provided in the appendix of this document. To use one, copy it to a file and put it in your usertag directory. (Tags in the usertag directory are read in by interchange.cfg by default).
Directives removed

    Act    AdminDatabase
    AdminPage
    AsciiBackend
    BackendOrder
    ButtonBars
    CheckoutFrame
    CheckoutPage
    CollectData
    DataDir
    Delimiter
    DescriptionTrim
    FieldDelimiter
    FrameFlyPage
    FrameLinkDir
    FrameOrderPage
    FrameSearchPage
    ItemLinkDir
    ItemLinkValue
    MsqlDB
    MsqlProducts
    Mv_AlinkColor
    Mv_Background
    Mv_BgColor
    Mv_LinkColor
    Mv_TextColor
    Mv_VlinkColor
    NewReport
    NewTags
    OldShipping
    OrderFrame
    PageCache
    PriceDatabase
    Random
    ReceiptPage
    RecordDelimiter
    ReportIgnore
    Rotate
    SearchFrame
    SearchOverMsg
    SecureOrderMsg
    SpecialFile
    SubArgs
    Tracking

onMap
Minor operations removed auto-substitution of mp= on [loop search=profile], [search-region arg=profile] [tag scan]... [tag sql]...

Many of these are related to one of: Removal of frames logic Removed tags Obsolete methods Old routines for 2.0x compatibility
Search lists Search tags must now be surrounded by [search-region] [/search-region]. This is because multiple searches can be done in a page, with multiple [more-list] entries, multiple [no-match] areas, etc. It was not really possible to avoid this and add the feature.

To find all files containing the search list, do:

find pages -type f ⎪ xargs grep -l '\[search.list'

That will yield a set of files that need to be updated. You should surround all parts of the search area, i.e.:

    [search-region]

    [search-list]
        your search iteration stuff, [item-code], etc.
    [/search-list]

    [more-list]
        [more]
    [/more-list]

    [/search-region]

Search conditionals Search conditionals should now say [if-item-field field] [/if-item-field] and [if-item-data table column] [/if-item-data]. This allows mixing and nesting of lists. You may find that the old works in some situations, but it will not work in all situations.
Form data updates Added Scratch variable mv_data_enable to gate the update_data function. You must set it before doing a form update. Prior to this it was possible to update a SQL database willy-nilly.

A quick fix like this will allow the update on a single page:

    [set update_database]
    [set mv_data_enable]1[/set]
    [/set]
    <INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME=mv_click VALUE=update_database>

It will ensure at least that the user loads one form from you for each update. For best security, gate with a userdb entry like this:

    [set update_database]
    [if type=data term="userdb::trusted::[data session username]"]
        [set mv_data_enable]1[/set]
    [else]
        [set mv_data_enable]0[/set]
    [/else]
    [/if]
    [/set]

Checkout changes Minivend 4 uses in-page error-flagging on the checkout page. Simplest way to convert is probably to use the checkout.html from the simple demo as a start, and move in any customization from the existing site's catalog.html (headers, footers, logos, etc.) A line-by-line comparison of the data fields in the checkout page should be performed, adding any custom fields as needed. Custom error checking in etc/order.profiles may have to be re-worked, or can be added into checkout.html using the in-page order profile capability. (Note that etc/order.profiles is called etc/profiles.order in newly-built Interchange catalogs.)

Remember to update receipt.html and report/report.html with any custom fields, as well.
[if-field] etc. The least-compatible things in the tag area are [if-field] (needs to be [if-PREFIX-field], where prefix might be item⎪loop by default depending on the tag. Likewise:

    [if-data table col]  --> [if-PREFIX-data table col]
    [on-change mark]     --> [PREFIX-change mark]
    [if-param param]     --> [if-PREFIX-param param]
    [PREFIX-param N]     --> [PREFIX-pos N] (where N is a digit)

[search-list] You must always surround [search-list] with [search-region] [/search-region].

Embedded Perl changes quite a bit. While there are the $Safe{values} and other variable settings, they are automatically shared (no arg="values") and move to:

    $Safe{values}   -->  $Values
    $Safe{cgi}      -->  $CGI
    $Safe{carts}    -->  $Carts
    $Safe{items}    -->  $Items
    $Safe{config}   -->  $Config
    $Safe{scratch}  -->  $Scratch

There are a number of other objects, see the docs.

Most other issues have more to do with the catalog skeleton (i.e. simple or barry or basic or art) than they do the core. For instance, the "basic" catalog produced for MV3 ran unchanged except for the issues discussed above.
Global subs Accessing globalsubs from [perl] tags is done slightly differently.

Minivend 3 method:

[perl sub] myfunsub(); [/perl]

Minivend 4/IC method:

[perl subs=1] myfunsub(); [/perl]

If you do this wrong, you'll get an error that looks like this:

115.202.115.237 H8gbq6oK:115.202.115.237 - [28/February/2001:18:58:50 -0500] testcat /cgi-bin/testcat.cgi Safe: Undefined subroutine &MVSAFE::myfunsub called at (eval 283) line 2. Minivend 3 compatibility usertags and globalsubs These files were originally distributed with Minivend 4 in the compat/ directory. They replace Minivend 3 functionality that was removed or greatly altered in Minivend 4. body

 UserTag body PosNuUserTag body Order type extra
UserTag body Routine <<EOR
use vars qw($C);
sub parse_color {
    my ($var, $value) = @_;
    return '' unless $value;
    $var = lc $var;
    $C->{Color}->{$var} = [];
    @{$C->{'Color'}->{$var}} = split /\s+/, $value;
    return $value;
}

sub {
my($scheme, $extra) = @_;
my $r = '<BODY';
my ($var,$tag);
#return '<BODY>' unless (int($scheme) < 16 and int($scheme) > 1);

    my %color = qw( mv_bgcolor BGCOLOR mv_textcolor TEXT
                    mv_linkcolor LINK mv_vlinkcolor VLINK
                    mv_alinkcolor ALINK mv_background BACKGROUND );
    if (defined $::Values->{mv_resetcolors}
            and $::Values->{mv_resetcolors}) {
        delete $::Values->{mv_customcolors};
        undef $::Values->{mv_resetcolors};
    }
    if (defined $::Values->{mv_customcolors}) {
        foreach $var (keys %color) {
            $r .= qq⎪ $color{$var}="⎪ . $::Values->{$var} . '"'
                if $::Values->{$var};
        }
    }
    else {
        foreach $var (keys %color) {
            $r .= qq⎪ $color{$var}="⎪ . ${$Vend::Cfg->{Color}->{$var}}[$scheme] . '"'
                if defined ${$Vend::Cfg->{Color}->{$var}}[$scheme]
                    &&  ${$Vend::Cfg->{Color}->{$var}}[$scheme] !~ /\bnone\b/;
        }
    }
    $r =~ s#(BACKGROUND="(?!http:))([^/])#$1$Vend::Cfg->{ImageDir}$2#;
    $r .= " $extra" if defined $extra;
    $r .= '>';
}
EOR

AddDirective Mv_Background color AddDirective Mv_BgColor color AddDirective Mv_TextColor color AddDirective Mv_LinkColor color AddDirective Mv_AlinkColor color AddDirective Mv_VlinkColor color ber 2 buttonbar

 # Returns a buttonbar by UserTag buttonbar Order type
UserTag buttonbar PosNumber 1
UserTag buttonbar Interpolate 1
UserTag buttonbar Routine <<EOR
sub get_files {
    my($dir, @files) = @_;
    my(@out);
    my($file, $contents);
    foreach $file (@files) {
        config_error(
          "No leading ../.. allowed if NoAbsolute set. Contact administrator.\n")
        if $file =~ m#^\.\./.*\.\.# and $Global::NoAbsolute;
        push(@out,"\n") unless
            push(@out,readfile("$dir/$file.html"));
    }

    @out;
}

sub parse_buttonbar {
my ($var, $value) = @_;
return [] unless $value;
my @c;
my @vals = grep /\S/, split /\s+/, $value;
for(@vals) {
push @c, Vend::Util::readfile("pages/$_.html");
}
return \@c; } sub {
my($buttonbar) = @_;
if (defined $Vend::Cfg->{'ButtonBars'}->[$buttonbar]) {
return $Vend::Cfg->{'ButtonBars'}->[$buttonbar];
}
else {
return '';
} } EOR AddDirective ButtonBars buttonbar umber form_mail.cfg

 GlobalSub <<Ensub form_mail {
    my($to, $subject, $reply, $body) = @_;
    my($ok);

    $subject = '<no subject>' unless defined $subject && $subject;

    $reply = '' unless defined $reply;
    $reply = "Reply-to: $reply\n" if $reply;

    $ok = 0;
    SEND: {
        open(Vend::MAIL,"⎪$Vend::Cfg->{'SendMailProgram'} -t") or last SEND;
        print Vend::MAIL
            "To: $to\n",
            $reply,
            "Subject: $subject\n",
            "Errors-To: $Vend::Cfg->{MailOrderTo}\n\n",
            $body
            or last SEND;
        close Vend::MAIL or last SEND;
        $ok = ($? == 0);
    }

    if (!$ok) {
        logError("Unable to send mail using $Vend::Cfg->{'SendMailProgram'}\n" .
            "To '$to'\n" .
            "With subject '$subject'\n" .
            "With reply-to '$reply'\n" .
            "And body:\n$body");
    }
    $ok;
}
EndOfSub

OfSub help

 UserTag help PosNuUserTag help Order name
UserTag help Routine <<EOR
sub parse_help {
    my ($var, $value) = @_;
    my (@files);
    my (@items);
    my ($c, $chunk, $item, $help, $key);
    unless (defined $value && $value) {
        $c = {};
        return $c;
    }
    $c = $C->{'Help'};
    $var = lc $var;
    $C->{'Source'}->{'Help'} = $value;
    @files = get_files($C->{'PageDir'}, split /\s+/, $value);
    foreach $chunk (@files) {
        @items = split /\r?\n\r?\n/, $chunk;
        foreach $item (@items) {
            ($key,$help) = split /\s*\n/, $item, 2;
            if(defined $c->{$key}) {
                $c->{$key} .= $help;
            }
            else {
                $c->{$key} = $help;
            }

        }
    }
    return $c;
}

sub {
my($help) = shift;
# Move this to control section?
if ($::Values->{mv_helpon}) {
delete $::Values->{mv_helpoff};
undef $::Values->{mv_helpon};
}
return '' if defined $::Values->{'mv_helpoff'};
if (defined $Vend::Cfg->{'Help'}{$help}) {
return $Vend::Cfg->{'Help'}{$help};
}
else {
return '';
} } EOR AddDirective Help help ber 1 random_rotate

 UserTag random PosNuUserTag random Interpolate 1
UserTag random Routine <<EOR
package Vend::Config;
sub parse_random {
    my ($var, $value) = @_;
    return '' unless (defined $value && $value);
    my $c = [];
    $var = lc $var;
    my @files = grep /\S/, split /\s+/, $value;
    local ($Vend::Cfg) = $C;
    for (@files) { push @$c, Vend::Util::readin($_) }
    return $c;
}

package Vend::Interpolate; sub {
my $random = int rand(scalar(@{$Vend::Cfg->{'Random'}}));
if (defined $Vend::Cfg->{'Random'}->[$random]) {
return $Vend::Cfg->{'Random'}->[$random];
}
else {
return '';
} } EOR UserTag rotate PosNumber 2 UserTag rotate Order ceiling floor UserTag rotate Interpolate 1 UserTag rotate Routine <<EOR sub {
return '' unless $Vend::Cfg->{Rotate};
my $ceiling = $_[0] ⎪⎪ @{$Vend::Cfg->{'Rotate'}} ⎪⎪ return '';
my $floor = $_[1] ⎪⎪ 1;

    $ceiling--;
    $floor--;

    my $marker = "rotate$floor$ceiling";

    if($ceiling < 0 or $floor < 0) {
        $floor = 0;
        $ceiling = scalar  @{$Vend::Cfg->{'Rotate'}} - 1;
        logError "Bad ceiling or floor for rotate";
    }

    my $rotate;
    $rotate = $Vend::Session->{$marker} ⎪⎪ $floor;

    if($rotate > $ceiling or $rotate < $floor ) {
        $rotate = $floor;
    }

    $Vend::Session->{$marker} = $rotate + 1;
    return $Vend::Cfg->{'Rotate'}->[$rotate];
}
EOR

AddDirective Random random AddDirective Rotate random ber 0 AsciiBackend

 GlobalSubsub AsciiBackend {
    package Vend::Order;
    $Vend::Order::override_track_order = \&track_order;
    sub track_order_backend {
        my ($order_no,$order_report) = @_;
        my ($c,$i);
        my (@backend);

        @backend = split /\s*,\s*/, $Vend::Cfg->{BackendOrder};

        if(@backend and $Vend::Cfg->{AsciiBackend}) {
            my(@ary);
            push @ary, $order_no;
            for(@backend) {
                push @ary, $::Values->{$_};
            }
            foreach $i (0 .. $#$Vend::Items) {
                push @ary, $Vend::Items->[$i]{'code'};
                push @ary, $Vend::Items->[$i]{'quantity'};
                if ($Vend::Cfg->{UseModifier}) {
                    foreach $j (@{$Vend::Cfg->{UseModifier}}) {
                        push @ary, $Vend::Items->[$i]->{$j}
                    }
                }
            }
            logData ($Vend::Cfg->{AsciiBackend}, @ary);
        }
        $Vend::Order::override_track_order->($order_no, $order_report);
    }
    *track_order = \&Vend::Order::override_track_order;
}
EOS

AddDirective BackendOrder AddDirective AsciiBackend <<EOS Interchange is a descendent of Vend, an e-commerce solution originally developed by Andrew Wilcox in early 1995. Mike Heins took the first publicly-released version, Vend 0.2, and added searching and DBM catalog storage to create MiniVend. Mike released MiniVend 0.2m7 on December 28, 1995. Subsequent versions of MiniVend took parts from Vend 0.3, especially the vlink and Server.pm modules, which were adapted to run with MiniVend. In the four years that followed, Mike Heins expanded and enhanced MiniVend, creating a powerful and versatile e-commerce development platform. MiniVend grew to support thousands of businesses and their e-commerce sites.

Separately, an experienced e-commerce development team founded Akopia. Their goal was to create a sophisticated open source e-commerce platform that was both feature-rich and easy to use. Their product, Tallyman, was intuitive, and had great content-management features, but lacked many of MiniVend's capabilities.

Akopia acquired MiniVend in June 2000. Mike Heins and the Tallyman developers combined MiniVend with Tallyman's features to create Interchange. Interchange replaces both MiniVend and Tallyman. In order to preserve compatibility, the name "minivend" and prefixes like "mv_" and "MVC_" will still appear in source code and configuration files.

In January 2001, Red Hat acquired Akopia and created its new E-Business Solutions Division. Interchange development is going forward and the user community continues to grow.

 ________________________________________

Copyright 2001 Red Hat, Inc. Freely redistributable under terms of the GNU General Public License.