Is this a good hit counter script

[prcollin]

Thought it was good but when i upload the files to my server the resultant display is just <?php on the website

 

 

this is index.php (just for testing purposes its a new server)

<?php
$count_my_page = ("hitcounter.txt");
$hits = file($count_my_page);
$hits[0] ++;
$fp = fopen($count_my_page , "w");
fputs($fp , "$hits[0]");
fclose($fp);
echo $hits[0];
?>

 

with hitcounter.txt just being

 

<?php
include("index.php");
?>

 

[craygo]

would be fine but you may want to revise it to store hits basde on some kind of time limit and ip address. Otherwise the person can sit there and hit refresh and you will have 5000 hits in no time.

 

Ray

[prcollin]

would be fine but you may want to revise it to store hits basde on some kind of time limit and ip address. Otherwise the person can sit there and hit refresh and you will have 5000 hits in no time.

 

Ray

 

First problem is do you know why it might only be displaying "<? php" when I visit my page instead of the hit number?

 

Second I dont know how to set the limit yet this is my first hit counter so I will have to research into that.  Thanks thogh for bringing that to my attention

[trq]

If its displaying <?php then it seems more likely your server isn't configured to handle php.

[fanfavorite]

The only thing that should be in the hitcounter.txt file is a number.

 

<?php

$count_my_page = "hitcounter.txt";  //file to open

$hits = file($count_my_page); //reads the file into an array

$hits[0] ++;  //Add's 1 to the first array

$fp = fopen($count_my_page , "w");  //opens hitcounter.txt for writing

fputs($fp , "$hits[0]");  //writes the new value to the hitcounter.txt

fclose($fp);  //closes the file

echo $hits[0];  // shows the new value

?>

[DarkWater]

Make sure your server has PHP installed.

[prcollin]

Make sure your server has PHP installed.

 

Yeah it does php5 its all through hostgator reseller account so php, mysql, apache, curl all that is already isntalled

[fanfavorite]

Guys the problem is not php.  It obviously is enabled with the result.  He is getting <?php because the .txt file lines are:

 

<?php

include("index.php");

?>

 

which:

 

$hits[0] = "<?php"

$hits[1] = "include(\"index.php\");"

$hits[2] = "?>"

 

All that needs to be done is put a number in the txt file.  You can't use php in a .txt file unless you specify the header.  

[prcollin]

yeah fixed it it works fine now. 

 

Now my only problem is how to set it so it only accepts a count from an ip adresss once every 2 hours

[fanfavorite]

$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']  gets the ip.  Now you need to store the ip's in a database or txt file.  Refer to the comments for each line of the code that I posted to figure out how to store the ip address and post back if you need help.   

[prcollin]

$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']  gets the ip.  Now you need to store the ip's in a database or txt file.  Refer to the comments for each line of the code that I posted to figure out how to store the ip address and post back if you need help.     

 

there currently is no db for the counter yet  I will have to create on and get back to u but i think i will do something like

 

Table

CREATE TABLE unique (
  page VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
  counter INT UNSIGNED,
  address VARCHAR(30) not null
  PRIMARY KEY (page)
  ); 

 

php script

 

Hmm ill figure that one out in a bit and post when i get the php script done and you can tell me if its right or not off the top of my head i cant generate the script even though its prolly extremely simple.  Trying to learn vb2008, php, C++ and C# all at once is bad for trying to remember simple scripts lol

[prcollin]

I am compeletly lost on how to do it so that it restricts unique hits to once every two hours by same ip adress

 

Can any help me out i have googled it and read soemother posts but none of them that i got off of google inlude $_SERVER[REMOTE_ADDR] because i cant find one that does unique by ip address, and def not one that restricts by time

 

[Rohan Shenoy]

^use a cookie and then log the hit using some conditional statements as you wish

[prcollin]

^use a cookie and then log the hit using some conditional statements as you wish

 

yeah not at cookies yet.  Maybe can I have a date function that logs the date a user visits the site and say if id == 'userid' and $date < 1

then

$count_my_page = "hitcounter.txt";  //file to open

$hits = file($count_my_page); //reads the file into an array

$hits[0] ++;  //Add's 1 to the first array

$fp = fopen($count_my_page , "w");  //opens hitcounter.txt for writing

fputs($fp , "$hits[0]");  //writes the new value to the hitcounter.txt

fclose($fp);  //closes the file

echo $hits[0];  // shows the new value

 

else

  echo $hits[0]; (and just not run any script to add to the file)

[craygo]

you should also log the time.

 

then you can just query the database for the ip address and the last time. if it is past the time then insert it. We will call the time field `lasttime`

 

<?php
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$time = strtotime("now - 2 hours");
$sql = "SELECT COUNT(`page`) AS `count` WHERE `lasttime` >= '$time' AND `address` = '$ip'";
$res = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error()); 
$r = mysql_fetch_assoc($res);
$count = $r['count'];
if($count < 1){
//insert new row here

}
?>

 

Ray

 

 

 

 

[Riseykins]

O.o x.x

 

What’s The Difference Between Page Views, Hits And Unique Visitors

 

This is all obvious if you know it, but it is surprising how any people don’t. Ask people you think should know the difference - this is a good question to ask a web designer you are considering hiring. If they get it wrong, I suggest you find another one.

 

Unique Visitors

 

A visitor, or rather a unique visitor is defined as a single person who visits your web site in a single session. So, if you visit a site and you spend say 15 minutes browsing various pages on it - say you visit a total of 25 different pages in that time, that would count as a single visit.

 

Page Views

 

The page view count is the actual number of pages that are made in the timeframe. So if you have 400 page views say, on a single day, that would mean that all your visitors together, viewed pages a total of 400 times. In the example we used earlier we would say that the single visitor who visited 25 pages, would have contributed at least 25 page views. This is because I said he visited 25 different pages, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t visit some of them more than once. In other words he may have contributed maybe 30 or 40 page views.

 

And Finally, Hits . . .

 

So what are these famous hits? Hits are not really of any use to you. But I’ll tell you what they are. Imagine there is a webpage called dogs.html, and on that page is some text and 10 images of dogs. Let’s also say that dogs.html uses a separate CSS file called dogs.css. If you go and view that page, you will incur 12 hits just by viewing that page once. That is because dogs.html counts as one hit, the 10 images count as a further 10 hits and the CSS file counts as one hit, giving a total of 12 hits. Now say you refresh the page. You will incur another 12 hits. You will add 12 hits to the hit count every time you hit refresh.

 

If 5 people visit the page once, that would make 60 hits. Can you see how hits have no meaningful relationship to unique visitor numbers? Now imagine the page dogs.html had 100 thumbnail images on it. This would mean that every time the page was viewed it would cause 102 hits to be added to the hit count. No wonder the guy at the dinner party thought he was getting a lot of visitors because he had a lot of hits. It is likely he thought hits were visitors.

 

http://www.lizjamieson.co.uk/2008/03/18/how-many-hits-does-your-website-get-per-day/

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

So if you want a hit counter on your site, you should really make it count what it says it's counting, otherwise people will really not have a clue what's going on. =^.^=

 

Fun times!

 

[prcollin]

you should also log the time.

 

then you can just query the database for the ip address and the last time. if it is past the time then insert it. We will call the time field `lasttime`

 

<?php
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$time = strtotime("now - 2 hours");
$sql = "SELECT COUNT(`page`) AS `count` WHERE `lasttime` >= '$time' AND `address` = '$ip'";
$res = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error()); 
$r = mysql_fetch_assoc($res);
$count = $r['count'];
if($count < 1){
//insert new row here

}
?>

 

Ray

 

 

 

 

 

great thanks I will try it out asap!

[prcollin]

ok i created a table called unique

 

added the fields

 

date

time

ipaddress

counter

page

 

entered craygo code but what do i add so that it adds a new line and do i just echo 'count' after the $count line and then also after the if statement?

[craygo]

lol you can just store the date and time together store it as a timestamp.

 

<?php
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$time = strtotime("now - 2 hours");
$page = $_SERVER['PHPSELF'];
$sql = "SELECT COUNT(`page`) AS `count` WHERE `lasttime` >= '$time' AND `address` = '$ip' AND `page` = '$page'";
$res = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error()); 
$r = mysql_fetch_assoc($res);
$count = $r['count'];
if($count < 1){
//insert new row here
$cur_time = time();
$insert = "INSERT INTO `unique` (`time`, `ipaddress`, `page`) VALUES ('$cur_time', '$ip', '$page')";
mysql_query($insert) or die(mysql_error());
}
?>

 

No need for the counter field because you can use the count function of mysql do do it for you. I added page in up top also.

 

Ray

[prcollin]

ok this is my final script

 

<?php

include("connect.php");

mysql_connect('$host', '$username', '$password', '$database');

or die ("Couldn't connect to server.");

$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$time = strtotime("now - 2 hours");
$page = $_SERVER['PHPSELF'];
$sql = "SELECT COUNT(`page`) AS `count` WHERE `lasttime` >= '$time' AND `address` = '$ip' AND `page` = '$page'";
$res = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error()); 
$r = mysql_fetch_assoc($res);
$count = $r['count'];
if($count < 1){
//insert new row here
$cur_time = time();
$insert = "INSERT INTO `unique` (`time`, `ipaddress`, `page`) VALUES ('$cur_time', '$ip', '$page')";
mysql_query($insert) or die(mysql_error());
}
?>

 

i have the connection variables stored in my connect.php script

 

and have index.php which simply is

 

<?php

include("counter.php");

?>

 

i get this error

 

 

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_LOGICAL_OR in /home/freshout/public_html/counter.php on line 6

 

no clue what it means lol

[craygo]

you have to combine the connection.

 

mysql_connect('$host', '$username', '$password', '$database');

or die ("Couldn't connect to server.");

 

should be

mysql_connect('$host', '$username', '$password', '$database') or die ("Couldn't connect to server.");

 

Ray

[prcollin]

you have to combine the connection.

 

mysql_connect('$host', '$username', '$password', '$database');

or die ("Couldn't connect to server.");

 

should be

mysql_connect('$host', '$username', '$password', '$database') or die ("Couldn't connect to server.");

 

Ray

 

now i get

 

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Unknown MySQL server host '$host' (1) in /home/freshout/public_html/counter.php on line 5

Couldn't connect to server.

 

my connect.php looks like

 

<?php
   $host= "localhost";
   $username= "xxxxxx";
   $password= "xxxxx";
   $database= "xxxx";
?>

 

what do you think my problem is now beside me being a moron lol

[fanfavorite]

Seems that it is reading $host as a string and not as a variable.  Try with the quotes:

 

mysql_connect($host, $username, $password, $database) or die ("Couldn't connect to server.");

[prcollin]

Seems that it is reading $host as a string and not as a variable.  Try with the quotes:

 

mysql_connect($host, $username, $password, $database) or die ("Couldn't connect to server.");

 

now with this code

<?php

include("connect.php");

$dbh= mysql_connect ("$host", "$user", "$password") or die ('I cannot connect to the database because: ' . mysql_error());
mysql_select_db ("freshout_counter");

$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$time = strtotime("now - 2 hours");
$page = $_SERVER['PHPSELF'];
$sql = "SELECT COUNT(`page`) AS `count` WHERE `lasttime` >= '$time' AND `address` = '$ip' AND `page` = '$page'";
$res = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error()); 
$r = mysql_fetch_assoc($res);
$count = $r['count'];
if($count < 1){
//insert new row here
$cur_time = time();
$insert = "INSERT INTO `unique` (`time`, `ipaddress`, `page`) VALUES ('$cur_time', '$ip', '$page')";
mysql_query($insert) or die(mysql_error());
}
?>

 

i get 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 'WHERE `lasttime` >= '1212757749' AND `address` = '24.147.126.116' AND `page` = '' at line 1

[fanfavorite]

Sorry I had a typo in my code.  I mean't try WITHOUT quotes as you see in my example:

 

mysql_connect($host, $username, $password, $database) or die ("Couldn't connect to server.");