Pacopag

Good suggestion, but didn't work. It's never been clear to me when to use mysql_real_escape_string and when not to. I always figured I should apply whenever I'm writing a string to mysql tables.

But I'm writing $phpgetbrowser to the same table in exactly the same way elsewhere in the script. It's the same 3 lines of code that works in one place but not another. Thanks for your reply.

Hi. I'm having a problem that is making me hostile. All I'm trying to do is to write the result of $phpgetbrowser = mysql_real_escape_string(print_r(get_browser(null, true), true)); to a mysql table. The data type in the table I'm using is varchar(800). So I do $sql = "insert into browsers values ('".$phpgetbrowser."')"; if (!mysql_query($sql,$con)) { die('Error: ' . mysql_error()); } What's making me crazy is that I copied and pasted this latter code from elsewhere in the script, where it works fine. I'm sure that the mysql connection has already been made, and that $phpgetbrowser is initialized. I get the following error Error: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ''Array\n(\n [browser_name_regex] => ^mozilla/5\\.0 (.*linux x86_64.*) applewe' at line 1 Any help would make me a much happier man. Thanks.

CPE0015e96c1a35-CM001ac35df5b0.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com

When I do echo(gethostbyaddr($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'])); I get some kind of key followed by what looks like a domain related to my isp. What exactly is this, and how uniquely does this identify the client? Can this be easily changed by the client user? Also, how would I use session ids to do what I'm trying to do?

But even cookies could be easily deleted.

wouldn session ids get destroyed by system restart, or by using a different browser?

Wouldn't mac address be a good way to identify unique visitors? Can it be done client side, say javascript, and ajaxed to server?

Is there any way to get the users' MAC addresses?

What is the difference between $_SERVER['REMOTE_HOST'] and gethostbyaddr($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']); ???

The voters are not necessarily registered users. I suppose I could create a session variable for each visitor, but wouldn't that get destroyed if they just reset their computer? I was thinking maybe writing their ip and machine name to a db to use as a unique id, but I'm not sure how to get the machine name. I think that gethostbyaddr() might work, but I read that it only works on Windows. Is there any other info about the visitor that I could retrieve that would identify them as unique?

Hi. I'm running a photo contest where viewers vote on the photos. Right now I'm limiting the number of votes to 2 per ip address, per day. But I'm worried that some people will know how to change their ip address and vote many more than twice per day. Does anyone know of a good way to do something like this? I want each unique visitor to be able to vote on each picture only twice per day. Thanks,

Right on! Thanks.

Yeah. I'm getting that feeling. I think that w3schools may be a good starting point, but you really gotta dig much deeper than what they give you to do things "right". Thanks for the advice.

Thank you extremely much for the detail of your example. I really appreciate it. And you taught me the value of rigorous error checking. It turns out my problem is that the files are just too big. I learned this from the output of $_FILES["somefile"]["error"], which gave error code of 1. Man I feel like a dolt now. Thanks again for your help.