click counter when link is pressed

**kimberlyhello** · 07-20-2008, 05:51 AM

Hi,

I would like to incorporate a counter that counts up every time a link is clicked.

I don't want to use a database...just one link that says "click here" and a counter displayed right next to the link that starts at 0 and counts up every time the link is clicked. I would also like the browser to be automatically reloaded after the link is clicked so that the user can see the number go up by one each time it is clicked.

Is this easy using php?

Any help would be appreciated. Maybe someone could just point me in the right direction, I don't even know where to start.

Thanks!

**TheJoshMan** · 07-20-2008, 08:58 AM

I'm not real good with PHP, but I wrote a small javascript that will do what you're asking for...

Code:

<HTML>
 <HEAD>
  <TITLE> Clicker Counter Thingamajig </TITLE>
</head>

<body>


<script type="text/javascript">

var clicks = 0;
function linkClick(){
    document.getElementById('clicked').value = ++clicks;
}

document.write('<a href="#" onclick="linkClick()">Click Me!</a>');


</script>

You have clicked the link <input id="clicked" size="3" onfocus="this.blur();" value="0" > times.



 </BODY>
</HTML>

**Jesdisciple** · 07-20-2008, 07:08 PM

Originally Posted by kimberlyhello

I would like to incorporate a counter that counts up every time a link is clicked.

[...]

Is this easy using php?

For a beginner I would say, "Yes and no"; it's very simple, but the hard part is the one that actually records and retrieves the count. And it must be somehow recorded outside of PHP, because a PHP execution is both finite and one-for-one (i.e. one execution of PHP can only respond to one client request).

Originally Posted by kimberlyhello

I don't want to use a database...

If you don't want a database (a collection of huge files) then how about a simple file?

Originally Posted by kimberlyhello

Any help would be appreciated. Maybe someone could just point me in the right direction, I don't even know where to start.

Start with the Filesystem Functions, particularly file_get_contents, file_put_contents, and file_exists.

And make sure to ask in this thread if you get stuck.

**techietim** · 07-20-2008, 07:26 PM

PHP Code:


<?php
if(!file_exists('counter.txt')){
  file_put_contents('counter.txt', '0');
}
if($_GET['click'] == 'yes'){
  file_put_contents('counter.txt', ((int) file_get_contents('counter.txt')) + 1);
  header('Location: ' . $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']);
  die;
}
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
  <title>counter example</title>
</head>
<body>
  <h1><?php echo file_get_contents('counter.txt'); ?></h1>
  <a href="?click=yes">clickMe</a>
</body>
</html>

**kimberlyhello** · 07-21-2008, 04:21 AM

Thanks Nyne Lyvez, Jesdisciple, and techietim. I really appreciate all of your help.

Nyne Lyvez - thanks for your javascript. I just wished that the numbers on the counter were permanent.

Jesdisciple - Yes, a simple file would be ok to use instead of a database. Sort of like what techietim posted here.

techietim - I tried using your script. First I made a txt file called counter.txt and then I uploaded the script that you posted. But it didn't work. And how would I get the numbers to be displayed on the same page?

I will try to use this script and just keep working on it. Thank you again.

**techietim** · 07-21-2008, 11:57 AM

@kimberlyhello

You may have to CHMOD the counter.txt file to 666

**kimberlyhello** · 07-22-2008, 01:09 AM

techietim - How do I do the CHMOD thing? How do I change it to 666?

**thetestingsite** · 07-22-2008, 01:21 AM

When in your FTP client, you should be able to right click on the file and choose something along the lines of permissions or chmod or something to that effect.

Hope this helps.

**kimberlyhello** · 07-22-2008, 02:07 AM

Thanks. I got the chmod to 666. But the script is still not working.

Any other ideas? Am I still doing something wrong?

I am using (techietim's script): I named it test.html and also have a text file named counter.txt in the same folder as test.html

PHP Code:


<?php
if(!file_exists('counter.txt')){
  file_put_contents('counter.txt', '0');
}
if($_GET['click'] == 'yes'){
  file_put_contents('counter.txt', ((int) file_get_contents('counter.txt')) + 1);
  header('Location: ' . $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']);
  die;
}
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
  <title>counter example</title>
</head>
<body>
  <h1><?php echo file_get_contents('counter.txt'); ?></h1>
  <a href="?click=yes">clickMe</a>
</body>
</html>

!

Just after writing the above post, I realized that test.html should be test.php. After I changed that, it worked perfectly!

Thanks to all who helped me. I am still learning and so I always appreciated the help.

One last question (which is very important for what I am trying to accomplish on my website) - How do I make it so that I can have multiple different unique links that all work the same way as this one. For example, if I have a link like this: http://www.mysite.com/profile.php?uid=30 but I also what to have all the other user id links as well (http://www.mysite.com/profile.php?uid=29 and http://www.mysite.com/profile.php?uid=27 and so on). But I want them to all count up independently. Can I just add "?click=yes" to the end of the link some how? help!

Thanks.

**kimberlyhello** · 07-25-2008, 04:13 AM

techietim??? Are you still there?

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click counter when link is pressed

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