Only allow the last item added to cart in the cart

Question

My client wants only one product of a particular type in the cart/quote. And it should be the most recent product added to the cart.

For example, user finds product. Adds to cart. User finds another product and adds to cart. I need to remove the first item and add the second.

I found this article which shows how to monitor items in the cart. I have it working, but I'm lost on the next step.

Ideas???

Answer 1

Have you tried deleting the existing items? So for example in the linked question just use this in the Observer class

if ($quote->getItemsCount() >= 1) {
    foreach ($quote->getItemsCollection() as $item) {
        $item->isDeleted(true);
    }
}

or

if ($quote->getItemsCount() >= 1) {
    foreach ($quote->getItemsCollection() as $item) {
        $quote->removeItem($item->getId());
    }
}

Answer 2

You can also use below event/observer for the same:

<controller_action_predispatch_checkout_cart_index> 
     <observers>
         <[MODULE NAME]>
             <class>[OBSERVER CLASS]</class>
                 <method>checkoutRemoveProductFromCart</method>// method added in observer
         </[MODULE NAME]>
     </observers>
</controller_action_predispatch_checkout_cart_index> 

Here in above code you need to change below constants added between [] brackets as per your custom module.

class [COMPANY NAME]_[MODULE NAME]_Model_Observer
{
        public function checkoutRemoveProductFromCart(Varien_Event_Observer $observer)
    {
            $quote = Mage::getSingleton('checkout/session')->getQuote();

             if ($quote ->getItemsCount() >= 1) {
                foreach ($quote->getItemsCollection() as $item) {
                    $quote ->removeItem($item->getId());
                 }
             }

        }
}