stopping rabid user refresh/back button

[ednark]

trying to think of a scheme that will have a page notice if it's been 'backed' into or 'refreshed' into an then not execute again....

only thing i can think of is forcing a $_SESSION['previous_page'] variable

this is my concept in motion:

each important page could have:

$only_execute_from = 'uri_to_form.php';

if ( $_SESSION['previous_page'] == $only_execute_from ) ) {
    /// perform action
} else {
   /// skip action
}

... main code ...

$_SESSION['previous_page'] = $SERVER['PHP_SCRIPT'];

theoretically you could expand this into an object that contained ALLOW/DENY lists and order, ala apache.
does anyone see any major flaw in that theory?

anyone else come up with a better idea?

is there a much simpler way that im just missing?

[The_Chancer]

I had a similar thought, but whether this is a viable option for you, I don't know.

First page opens and immediately minimises, with Javascript opening a second page with no options, and every page has the right mouse button disabled...

Unless of course you want to know if they are backing up and trying it again...

Option 2...
Set a cookie each page and delete it two pages down the line... use something to see if the cookie is set.... (possibly)

Option 3...
Use sessions and name each page... could be complicated, but might work...

(not thought these through though... and it is late in the evening....)

[ednark]

no javascript for me thank you... i don't think thats reliable enough...

i don't like cookies as they are editable by the user and so could fake what their last page was

i think ill stick with the session...

something like this im working on

this is just for concept at the moment, not sure how i will use it in any sort of real life situation though...

thinking of using serialize() for the session...

<?php

define( 'SITEVISIT_WITH_QUERY',    1 );
define( 'SITEVISIT_WITHOUT_QUERY', 0 );

class SiteVisit
{
    var $page_list;
    var $session_name;

function SiteVisit()
{
    $this->session_name = 'site_visit';
    $this->getFromSession();
}

function getFromSession()
{
    if( !isset($_SESSION[$this->session_name]) ) {
        $_SESSION[$this->session_name] = array();
    }
    $this->page_list =& $_SESSION[$this->session_name];
}

function logThisPage( $with_query_string=SITEVISIT_WITHOUT_QUERY )
{
    $this_page = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
    if ( $with_query_string==TRUE ) {
        $this_page .= "?{$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']}";
    }
    $this->logPage($this_page);
}

function logPage( $uri )
{
    array_unshift( $this->page_list, $uri );
}

function lastPage()
{
    return $this->previousPage( 1 );
}

function previousPage( $how_far=1 )
{
    return $this->page_list[$how_far];
}

function hasBeenTo( $uri )
{
    return in_array($uri,$this->page_list);
}

function clear( $how_many=NULL )
{
    if ( $how_many = NULL ) {
        $this->page_list = array();
    } else {
        for ( $i=0; $i<$how_many; $i++ ) {
            array_pop( $this->page_list );
        }
    }
}
}


header("Content-type:text/plain");
$sv = new SiteVisit();
print_r($sv->page_list);
$sv->logThisPage(SITEVISIT_WITH_QUERY);
print_r($sv->page_list);
/// $sv->clear();


?>