Showing Visted Pages?

malebolgia

I want create a script that shows where the user has been on a webpage. Similar to Amazon.com's site that tells you which items you already looked at on the site. However since I'm not familar with any real web based programming languages I don't know what to do. Below is what someone recommended I do, but again I don't know PHP all that well so can anyone help me out?

You wouldnt really need a db

You session_start(); at the beginning of all your pages, and you assign each page a unique id. Say for home its 1, about us is 2, links is 3. The person visits home, and you get what their current number of visit pages with a quick for loop, add one and set it: $SESSION['1'] = "1"; They go to your links page and you do the same thing, except you use $SESSION['2'] = "3";

Like this:

PHP:

// This is for the home page

session_start();

// Check to see if this is their first visit to your site

if (!$_SESSION['1']) { $use = '1'; }

else {

// Run thru to see how many pages they've visited

for ($x = 1;$_SESSION['$x'];$x++) {}

// Increment x one more time so you dont overwrite the last one

$x++;

// set the session variable

$_SESSION['$x'] = "1";

This probably wont work if you use different pages (ie. home.php, links.php, etc); but then again the code might not work at all as I just pulled this out of my head

uniflare

This might work, but you'd need a database and table...

home.php:

<?php


Function check_visit()
{
	$host = "localhost";
	$user = "root";
	$pass = "";
	$database = "my_website_db";
	$table_name = "access_list";

$ipaddress = getenv('REMOTE_ADDR');
// Get this IP Address of that person

$conn = mysql_connect($host,$user,$pass);
// Connect to MySQL

$db = mysql_select_db($database);
// Select your Database

$mysql_query = 'SELECT "visited_pages" FROM "'.$table_name.'" WHERE "ipaddress"=\''.$ipaddress.'\' LIMIT 1';
// Create your MySQL Code

if(mysql_num_rows(mysql_query($mysql_query)) < "1") {
     mysql_query("INSERT INTO \"$table_name\" VALUES('0','$ipaddress','')");
     $executed = mysql_query($mysql_query);
// if user isn't registered, it registers the user and then executes the query...
}else{
     $executed = mysql_query($mysql_query); }

$user_details = mysql_fetch_array($executed);
// Get the user details array

$visited_arr = explode("--=|=--",$user_details['visited_pages']);
// get the list of pages this person has visited

$a = count($visited_arr);
for($x=0;$x<$a;$x++){
     if($visited_arr[$x] == $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']){
          $found = "yes";
     }
     if($visited_arr[$x] != null){
     $visited .= $visited_arr[$x]."--=|=--"; }
}
if($found != "yes"){
     $visited .= $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'];
     $code = 'UPDATE "'.$table_name.'"
     SET "visited_pages" = \''.$visited.'\'
     WHERE 1 AND
     "ipaddress"=\''.$ipaddress.'\'';
     mysql_query($code); }
// if it the person hasn't viewed this page before, it updates the table
mysql_close($conn);
}
Function get_pages()
{
	$host = "localhost";
	$user = "root";
	$pass = "";
	$database = "my_website_db";
	$table_name = "access_list";


$ipaddress = getenv('REMOTE_ADDR');
// Get this IP Address of that person

$conn = mysql_connect($host,$user,$pass);
// Connect to MySQL

$db = mysql_select_db($database);
// Select your Database

$sql = 'SELECT * FROM "'.$table_name.'" WHERE "ipaddress"=\''.$ipaddress.'\'';
// make the query again

$qry = mysql_query($sql);
// execute the query again

$c_row = mysql_fetch_array($qry);
// fetch the result set

$v_list = explode("--=|=--",$c_row['visited_pages']);
// get the new updated list of visited pages

$j = count($v_list);
// Count how many pages the person has visited

for($i=0;$i<$j;$i++){
     if($i < 1){ $page = "<b>Since you have first visited you have viewed: </b>".$j." <b>Pages<br><br>The very first page you have visited is: </b>".$v_list[$i]."<br>"; }
     else{ $page .= "<b>You have also visited: </b>".$v_list[$i]."<br>"; }
}

mysql_close($conn);

return $page;
}
check_visit();
// must use this on ALL your pages... this checks and UPDATES the visited pages list

echo(get_pages());
// use this if you want to tell people the pages they have visited WARNING: shows the complete url to each page....
?>

I have tested this code on my comp and it works fine...

There are 2(TWO) functions..

check_visit() = checks and updates visited pages list

get_pages() = returns a list of pages the user has visited

use at will 😉

malebolgia

Thanks a lot uniflare this really helps me. Right now its 2:00 AM where I live so I'll test it in the morning after I receive a message from the server telling me whether or not MySQL is supported. Funny thing is I have MySQL on my machine, but it isn't working so another fun thing for me to do today. Thanks again I'll let you know the results 😃