Need scripts that lists how many times file downloaded

**jscheuer1** · 03-18-2017, 05:53 PM

You could use an iframe or AJAX. Using iframe is easiest. Make up a php file called display_counter.php and put the php code on it:

Code:

<?php echo file_get_contents('path/to/counter.txt');?>

Then on your HTML page have an iframe:

Code:

<iframe name="counter" src="display_counter.php" width="90" height="30" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe>

You could even skip the step of the intermediate php page and just do:

Code:

<iframe name="counter" src="path/to/counter.txt" width="90" height="30" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe>

But sometimes displaying a text file in an iframe can fail. If you rename it to counter.htm (make sure to also change wherever it's referenced in the other code, so it gets updated), then there should be no problem.

Using AJAX for this is complicated, and really a bit of overkill for such a simple piece of information unless you already have jQuery on the page, in which case it's fairly simple to load the contents of the counter file into a div element on the page. Again, it would be best if it were a .php or .htm file, but probably less critical than with iframe.

**Beverleyh** · 03-19-2017, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by Kusu

Here,

Thank You, Beverleyh.

Step 1,2,3 worked for me but Step no.4 didn't gave me result.
Because i was having my page where result was to shown was html page not php page.
So I want the code of Step 4 in html format!

Can this be done? If possible how?

Waiting for reply, Thank You again...

Depending on what your web host allows, you might be able to use .htaccess to parse PHP in HTML pages. Try these http://deano.me/2015/12/php-inside-h...sing-htaccess/

Hope that helps

**jscheuer1** · 03-19-2017, 01:18 PM

Isn't it generally a bad idea to parse all HTML as PHP? Here's another bad idea (though it can be fine if you don't use the highlighted update feature too much):

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Simple AJAX Demo</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<style type="text/css">
#downloadcount {font: normal 95% verdana, arial, sans-serif;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="downloadcount">Number Downloaded: <span id="result"></span></div>
<script>
(function(url){
	var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
	xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
		if (this.readyState === 4 && this.status === 200) {
			document.getElementById('result').innerHTML = this.responseText;
		}
	};
	xhttp.open('get', url + '?bust=' + new Date().getTime(), true);
	xhttp.send();
	setInterval(function(){
		xhttp.open('get', url + '?bust=' + new Date().getTime(), true);
		xhttp.send();
	}, 3 * 60 * 1000);
})('counter.txt'); // use full path to counter.txt
</script>
</body>
</html>

If you don't need it updated, remove the highlighted. Currently it's set to update every 3 minutes, which is reasonable in most cases.

**Beverleyh** · 03-19-2017, 04:36 PM

I wouldn't say it's generally a bad idea to parse PHP in HTML. It makes the server work a little harder, yes, and it may create a bit of confusion with the organisation of files if somebody is expecting to see HTML in an .html file and PHP in a .php file (although with internal CSS and JavaScript already in HTML, and HTML in PHP, what's a little PHP in HTML going to do to the confusion level?), so I suppose the answer would be "it depends". To be honest, most of the web hosts and server environments I've worked on in the last 10 years had been setup to parse PHP in HTML files by default and I haven't had to fiddle with .htaccess at all. Maybe that's because they're private servers, semi-dedicated servers and "pro" level accounts on shared hosting though? It could be that more basic level shared hosting doesn't allow it.

**Kusu** · 03-21-2017, 03:24 PM

Dear Beverleyh,

I tried with step 4. i tried edit the value 0 to 55 or random number, it was working fine n showed the result.

But when i click the link it redirect to file link and opens it but doesn't increase the count by 1.

Counting is not done, i should say.

What to do?

**Gary4u** · 09-11-2018, 08:31 PM

I have tried this the download works but the counter display does not show no web page

**KarolGax** · 10-26-2019, 11:18 PM

got them both working now, Thanks

Now If I could just get help with one more thing...

How do i gag my passphrase from the logs? Zmud was doing it automatically, Cmud is not.

**franklinzed** · 12-09-2019, 02:17 PM

Counter is not updating for me.

PS: I'm using Cloudflare on the site

**Redochre** · 03-26-2020, 03:51 AM

I have registered just to say thank you Beverley!

I'm self-taught, I know - doesn't inspire confidence ;-)
and new to html/css & javascript (but from a C64 generation and with some success using C#). PHP scares me a little.
I found your second post, well commented code, extremely useful, inspiring... and with tinkering it works!

I had to rename my .html page as .php (my host?) and keep the html download on the page (or the .php didn't return to the download page).
I will explore why ... but supplying a simple useable code for counting downloads has been very kind - thank you again!