How To Rotate In Sequence?

[PTS]

On a site I am working on, I have a right column area that I want to load content from an include file from.

 

However, I have five different include files which I want to rotate in order.

 

For example, visitor views home page with include page 1 as the right column. They refresh the page or click on a link and the following page has include page 2. They click again and now it's include page 3. And so on until include page 5 and then back to include page 1.

 

Currently, I use rand() to randomly pick the include file but I want to find a way to make these go in order for a visitor. Is there an easy way to do this?

 

Any suggestions/direction would be greatly appreciated.

[per1os]

You want to use sessions.

 

<?php
session_start();
if (isset($_SESSION['viewing'])) 
   $_SESSION['viewing']++; // add one
else
   $_SESSION['viewing'] = 1; // start of the viewing


include('columnpage' . $_SESSION['viewing'] . '.inc.php');
?>

 

[PTS]

Thanks. I never thought it would be so simple. I gotta get myself to learn more about sessions.

 

I did the following to get the number back down to 1 after it hits 5.

 

session_start();
if (isset($_SESSION['viewing'])) 
   $_SESSION['viewing']++; // add one
else
   $_SESSION['viewing'] = 1; // start of the viewing

if ($_SESSION['viewing'] >= 5) {$_SESSION['viewing'] = 0;}
echo $_SESSION['viewing'];

 

Is this the best way to do it? Seems to do the trick for what I'm looking for.

[per1os]

That works, there is really no "best way" but here is another option for you.

 

session_start();
if (isset($_SESSION['viewing'])) {
   if ($_SESSION['viewing'] > 4) 
         $_SESSION['viewing'] = 0;
   else
         $_SESSION['viewing']++; // add one
}else {
   $_SESSION['viewing'] = 1; // start of the viewing
}

echo $_SESSION['viewing'];

 

But as they say there is more than one way to skin a fat cat.