Number of Hits with getenv() or something?

[Helios]

I remember reading somewhere on php.net (I believe) that there is an environment variable that gives you the number of requests to a page if you place it on that page. Does anyone know what this is? I have searched endlessly but the only results I get for this are counters, and counters are often branded, dishonest, and shabby looking. All I want is a plain text number of hits to a page with a function of some sort, perhaps built-in, perhaps defined.

[werkkrew]

Your best bet is to either use a file or a database to simply hold a number that gets added to every time the page is displayed and displays the number...

[Helios]

Hmm.. sounds good to me. I was nearly sure that there was a way to do it though, and I am nearly sure there is a way with Perl so I will see about that. Thanks for the help.

[Mordecai]

No, there's no built-in function. You can, however, do as werkkrew said, and use a file:

// Read the file
if (file_exists("count")) {
  $cfile = fopen("count","r");
  $count = fread($cfile, filesize("count"));
  fclose($cfile);
} else {
  $count = 0;
}
// Write to the file
$count = $count + 1;
$cfile = fopen("count","w");
fputs($cfile,$count);
fclose($cfile);

This will create the file if it doesn't exist.