magento detecting product page programmatically - magento

Question

On an observer file I need to detect if the loaded page corresponds to a product. I've been using a similar method to the one used on the checked answer on this question:
if (!(Mage::registry('current_product'))) return;
But until now we were testing on development. From today we are testing on pre-production servers, with lot of modules and plugins. Until now it worked seamesly but now it does not work, it does not detect when a product page is loaded. I think is related with the url rewrite to show a more "friendly" url's but can not detect how to solve it. I took a look into Alan Storm tutorial In Depth Magento Dispatch but I still can get what is wrong or what do I need to change.
Any idea? Or some other solution on how to detect when a product page is loaded?

Answer 1

You've verified that the observer is being hit? Make sure that for the event you are triggering on has a unique name for that event. For example in the following code the name "catalog_product_set_price" must be unique in regards to "catalog_product_load_after" event. I'm assuming you're getting into the observer, but just in case. This risk becomes possible if you add a bunch of new modules to an instance.
<catalog_product_load_after>
<observers>
<catalog_product_set_price>
<type>singleton</type>
<class>NamespaceModule_Model_Observer</class>
<method>set_price2</method>
</catalog_product_set_price>
</observers>
</catalog_product_load_after>
You could use the following array to check where you are:
$currentPageArray = array(
'request_string'=> Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getRequestString(),
'uri' => Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getRequestUri(),
'route' => Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getRouteName(),
'action' => Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getActionName(),
'controller' => Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getControllerName()
);
it will output something like:
Array
(
[request_string] => /some-category/some-product-page-url.html
[uri] => /catalog/product/view/id/64806/category/17
[route] => catalog
[action] => view
[controller] => product
)
You could try a different observer.
controller_action_layout_render_before_catalog_product_view
controller_action_postdispatch_catalog_product_view