Question

This is an ajax file running the following code:

$model = Mage::getModel('catalog/product'); //getting product model
    foreach ($violins as $k => $v)
       {
           $_product = $model->load($v); //getting product object for particular product id
           $violinmodel = $_product->getAttributeText('Violinmodel'); //grabbing the violinmodel attribute value
           echo $violinmodel;
       }

$violin contains an array with three product ID’s. My output is echoing the attribute value for the second and third ID’s fine, but is NOT echoing the first ID!

I don’t get this at all! Why would it completely skip the first ID in the loop and not echo anything, while echoing the following ID’s without a problem?

The attributes are set up properly and no matter how I rearrange the ID’s in the $violins array, the first attribute value is always skipped. What am I missing?

Answer 1

Initializing $model outside of your loop is unsafe. You might think that you are being more efficient with memory and/or function calls but you’re asking for trouble. The Mage_Catalog_Model_Product object is being loaded at that time, and calling ->load() isn’t giving you a new object, it’s just setting the data of your existing one. Except, you’ll get strange behavior when not all of the data gets overwritten (for example if ProductA has a Violinmodel attribute and ProductB doesn’t… it will look like ProductA.Violinmodel == ProductB.Violinmodel). For that reason, you should always put your model inside your loop.

foreach ($violins as $k => $v) {
    $_product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($v); //getting product
    if ($_product->getId() == $v) { // sanity check
        $violinmodel = $_product->getAttributeText('Violinmodel'); //grabbing the violinmodel attribute value
        echo $violinmodel;
    }
}

Or, as benmarks suggested, load this data via a collection:

$_products = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->getCollection()
    ->addAttributeToSelect('Violinmodel')
    ->addIdFilter($violins);
foreach ($_products as $_product) {
    echo $_product->getAttributeText('Violinmodel'));
}