Auto Increment Data Storage

[BuildMyWeb]

let's say i have two buttons on a webpage and i want to count how many times each is clicked by viewers over a term of a year.  obviously i can update a database but what are some simpler solutions?  more of a creative-thinking exercise than anything i suppose.

 

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what about a simple

file_put_contents();

that reads the current value in the file, increments it, and then overwrites the current val with the new?  would the value be read as a type (int) and not text?

 

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what else could we do?

[Barand]

That single line on its own will not do what you say it does. You need to

• read the content into variable,
• increment it
• put the content back.

 

It will be text but php's automatic type conversion will allow you to process it as int.

 

What's wrong with a db table? All you need then is

UPDATE mycounts SET count=count+1 WHERE button = 'A'

[BuildMyWeb]

i understand that about the file writing barand.

 

nothing wrong with doing it in a db.  like i said, this was more a creative exercise for me.  just wondering whatother creative solutions one might come up with. 

[rwhite35]

Since the web is "stateless", you really only have two choices.  database or flat file.  I prefer writing data to XML(flat file), specially when the public has the ability to add comments...  Usually for blog post and other long form text.  And save discrete data to a database.  That being said, your XML could store the count as Barand suggest (retrieve/tally/rewrite) or as new element in the XML. The XML might then look like:

//pseudo XML code
<tally>
  <count id="1">
    <click>1</click>
    <button>red</button>
    <date>2015-02-05</date>
  </count>
  <count id="2">
   <click>1</click>
   <button>blue</button>
   <date>2015-02-10</date>
  </count>
  //continues on...
  <count id="15">
   <click>1</click>
   <button>red</button>
   <date>2015-02-28</date>
  </count>
</tally>

It would be a simple matter of tallying the ticks from each <count><click> element.  That's an alternative approach since this is a thought experiment.

[BuildMyWeb]

thx all

[kicken]

Note that if you use a file approach you will need to take care to ensure you lock the file properly before reading/updating the content. Not doing this could result in a corrupt file due to multiple people hitting it at the same time.

 

If you use a database this problem is taken care of for you, provided to do it right and use a single UPDATE like Barand demonstrated rather than a SELECT first then update later.

 

There are plenty of ways you could track a counter. What you choose to use would depend mostly on what you need and whether you're already using a particular tech. If you're already using a database for your site, then using that for your counter as well would make sense. If you're not using database already, then a file of some type would work fine.