To make a counter, I first create a file to be my database and name it "files_08_a.log". It could be a .txt file but I name it .log so I know what it is by the extension. For PHP to be able to write to it, permissions must be set to 666. The log file will consist of just a single line containing the count..
After opening the log file in read only mode, I use fgets() to read the contents and assign it to a variable. fgets() has one required argument: a file resource, an optional argument: length in bytes and returns a string variable. If a no length argument is supplied, the string returned will stop at 1k (1024 bytes) in length or the end of the line, which ever comes first. If a length is supplied, reading stops at lengh-1 or the end of the line. If an error occurs, FALSE is returned.
When I tried to add 1 to the variable at this point, I ran into a problem. When you use fgets(), the variable returned is a string variable, not a numeric variable so I had to use intval() to make it into a numeric before adding 1 to it. After I have the updated count, I close the file and reopen it in write only mode.
At this point, you might ask, "Why not just open the log file in read/write mode and read it and write it in one step instead of opening it twice?" The answer is, I tried that and it didn't work. When you open it in read/write mode, the first thing PHP does, is delete the contents of the file so after you add one, the contents of the log is always 1.
With the file open in write only mode, I can overwrite the old count with fwrite(). fwrite has two arguments, a file resource and the string to write in this format:
fwrite($file_resource, "$string");
When you are finished writing to the file, close it with fclose().
<?
$temp = fopen("files/files_08_a.log", "r");
$count = fgets($temp);
$count = intval($count);
$count = $count+1;
fwrite($temp, "$count");
fclose($temp);
$temp = fopen("files/files_08_a.log", "w");
fwrite($temp, "$count");
fclose($temp);
?>
The contents of the log file can be put anywhere you want with file_get_contents().
<center>Viewed <? = file_get_contents("files/files_08_a.log"); echo ""?> times</center>
If you want some more information of the viewers of your page than how many times it has been viewed, you can make a logger. For this demonstration, I will log information on the last five page views. To do so will take several steps:
<?
# get variables
$agent = strip_tags($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
$IP = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$host = strip_tags(gethostbyaddr($IP));
$self = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
$ref = strip_tags($_SERVER[HTTP_REFERER]);
# open & write to log
$array = file("files_08_b.log");
$count = count($array);
if ( $count > 4)
{
# $old = array_shift($array);
array_shift($array);
}
$time = date( "m/d/y G.i:s", time() );
$new = "<li><b>Time:</b> $time<br /><b>IP:</b> $IP<br /><b>Host:</b> $host<br /><b>Agent:</b> $agent<br /><b>Viewed</b> <a href=\"http://$_SERVER[HTTP_HOST]$self\">$self</a><br /><b>Came from:</b> <a href=\"$ref\">$ref</a>\n";
array_push($array, "$new");
$log_02 = fopen("files_08_b.log", "w");
foreach( $array as $temp)
{ fwrite( $log_02, "$temp" ); }
fclose($log_02);
?>
file() in this format:
$array_name = file("file_name");
count() in this format:
$variable = count($array_name);
arrey_shift(). arrey_shift() removes and returns the top member of an array in this format:
$top_member = array_shift($array);
array_shift($array);
\n). \n), file() may not separate each entry the way that you want it to. If you use your Return key in the middle of the string, each entry may end up being broken into more than one entry
array_push(). array_push() adds a member to the bottom of the stack of an array in this format:
array_push($array_name, "$new_member");
foreach( $array as $temp)
{ fwrite( $log_02, "$temp" ); }
<?
# get variables
$agent = strip_tags($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
$IP = strip_tags($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
$host = gethostbyaddr($IP);
$self = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
$ref = strip_tags($_SERVER[HTTP_REFERER]);
# open & write to log
$array = file("files/files_08_b.log");
$count = count($array);
if ( $count > 4)
{
# $old = array_shift($array);
array_shift($array);
}
$time = date( "m/d/y G.i:s", time() );
$new = "<li><b>Time:</b> $time<br /><b>IP:</b> $IP<br /><b>Host:</b> $host<br /><b>Agent:</b> $agent<br /><b>Viewed</b> <a href=\"http://$_SERVER[HTTP_HOST]$self\">$self</a><br /><b>Came from:</b> <a href=\"$ref\">$ref</a>\n";
array_push($array, "$new");
$log_02 = fopen("files/files_08_b.log", "w");
foreach( $array as $temp)
{ fwrite( $log_02, "$temp" ); }
fclose($log_02);
?>
IMPORTANT Do not use include() to put the data on your web page. Use file_get_contents() instead. Hackers can replace their browser information with PHP code and if you use include() the logged code will be live and they can use that to highjack your web site. I used strip_tags() in the example above to prevent that but you should still never include a file that can be modified by someone else
<center>Last 5 visiters</center>
<ol>
<?
2267 = file_get_contents("files/files_08_b.log");
echo "";
?>
</ol>
After you learn how to create images, you can make an image based counter/logger.
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