Beginner PHP Tutorial - 95 - Creating a File Based Unique Hit Counter Part 3 Video Lecture | PHP for Absolute Beginners: From Novice to PHP Master - Web Development

so let's remove my IP address from here
and see if that goes okay so it's gone
so if we've got the IP address in we're
producing the result found otherwise
we're not so let's just take it all out
first of all okay so if the IP address
has been found we don't want to do any
sip anything so if it hasn't been found
we want to increment the value of the
database in the count txt file so now
what we can do is create a handle to
open this file so we're opening yet
we're opening I will create a variable
quick filename and that's going to be
count to X T so we're opening County
exit es we're just substituting that in
there and we're opening this to read in
the value okay so now what we want to do
is we want to grab this data so we can
say current equals F read and we're
reading from the handle and we need
MSI's to specify size so as per the last
example in the non-unique hit counter we
use the file size function and we used
we specified file name so now what we
can do is we can close it here using the
F close function and we can echo out
current just so we know what we do so if
the you the address hasn't been found
we're going to echo out 0 which is the
current which is the current value
encountered txt now what we want to do
underneath this we don't allow any more
now all we want to do underneath this is
say current Inc equals current Plus once
we're incrementing the value and
remember this is all while the IP
address has not been found in the
database or in the count txt file
now what we want to do is we want to
open up a new handle so we want to F
open we want to open file name this time
too right so if you've dealt with file
handling you'll understand this if not
go and have a look at file handling and
this will clearly make sense to you we
then want to F right and we want to
write to this current handle and we want
to write the value of current Inc then
we want to close the file
so we're closing handle and therefore
the value has been updated because we're
taking this current ink we're adding one
to the value of current and then we're
rewriting it into the file so right it's
going to overwrite everything so let's
just double check and see if this works
so at the moment it's zero I'm going to
refresh the page and hopefully well
we've got a message here saying the file
count look txt has been changed reload
we click yes and that's been updated to
one so let's just close that for now I'm
going to refresh again and you can see
that if we open up count on txt it's
changed to two now this is all well and
good but at the moment it's not unique
so what we want to do is after we've
inputted after we've written to this
file we want to open and open the IP txt
file
and we want to append an IP address onto
the end of it so what we want to do here
is create a new handle and this is F
open and this time we want to open let's
go up here we can just specify that in
here actually we want to open I P dot
txt and we want to open that to append
on to it and what this means is we're
going to be adding on to it we're not
going to over writing let me do with the
W we're not going to be reading like we
do with the are but we're appending to
the end of the file now what we can do
is we can say F right and we're writing
to handle
we want to write the current IP address
of the user which is IP address here so
if we come down IP address then what we
want to do is we want to add a line
break onto the end of it by a backslash
and and even notice I've used double
quotation marks this n won't be
processed as a newline if you use single
quotation marks so if you're not if
you're if it's not writing into a new
line for any reason it might be because
you haven't used double quotation marks
and now we can F close and we can close
this handle so we've got a lot of
repetitive code here but perhaps you
could come up with a function if you
want to to shorten this code up so now
we've written to the file we've pretty
much done because we've written back to
the file the IP address and now next
time when we check our IP address is
already stored so we won't be carrying
out the rest of this block that makes
sense so we'll come to counter txt make
sure that zero come to IP make sure
there's nothing in there now if I was to
refresh Kate we're obviously not getting
any output now let's open up count dot
txt you can see that's now a value one
let's close that
let's open up IP dot txt and you can see
that my IP address is written in there
now let's close this and try and refresh
again so we've refreshed again now
normally without the with with a
non-unique hit counter this value would
have incremented here but because we've
done this loop here the IP address
should have already been detected found
will be set to true and therefore this
block here will not be run sorry this
block here will not be run so we're not
going to be updating this and we're not
going to be adding the IP to the file so
let's open up account dot txt this is
still at value one because we've already
recognized that our IP address has
visited this website if we open up IP
dot txt the IP address is still there
nothing's been added because it has been
detected therefore our value has not
been updated
so this is a really simple way to create
a unique hit counter the code has been
reused in to some extent here so you
could perhaps come up with a function
that would allow you to combine these
and write particular data to them but
for now I'm not going to be doing that
because this video is just about
creating the hit counter it's totally up
to you to tidy up the code from what
you've learned with dealing with
functions and arguments but for now this
is the short and sharp unique hit
counter