[Resolved] Members Online...How??

ScubaKing22

I have seen on TONS of sites, including this one, a feature that shows how many and/or who is online? How is that accomplished?

Mordecai

Read this tutorial: http://arc.ireed.net/tutors/archive/php/001/index.php
It covers everything you'll need to know about it (well, except user's names). Just change IP to name and store a different variable.

cgraz

You might also try searching the forum. I can't think of any specific threads, but I've seen this covered plenty of times.

Good luck!

Cgraz

ScubaKing22

Well thanks for the suggestions but I couldn't find much in the way of code on this forum. The thing is I have an idea of HOW, I just don't know how to do the coding. Also, that tutorial mordecai is more for showing how many, not who, so is there anything else you can think of??? Thanks.

Zack

well to get the names of people online, you're going to need to have the names in the db... this can easily be done with the tutorial Mordecai showed you by having the user's name in the DB with their IP and then after checking to see if the IP is online, use a "SELECT FROM WHERE" query to get the names...

ScubaKing22

OK well that would work, except if they logged on from a different computer...But that would be unlikely, so I'll try it.

Zack

or you could not even do the IP thing and instead of IPs use the names of users... that would be even easier and better in case they DID use a different computer...

ScubaKing22

OK now I have one more problem. I made the code so that when they login a table called logged is set to 1, meaning they are logged in. But since I'm using sessions, how would I make it so when they close the window that field is set back to 0? Is there another method?

axo

Originally posted by ScubaKing22 But since I'm using sessions, how would I make it so when they close the window that field is set back to 0?

one more column (e.g. sess_expire) in the 'logged' table:

assuming $sid is the actual session_id:

$now = time();
$exp = $now + 5*60 // 5 minutes
// update sess_expire every time user is not idle
$sql = "UPDATE logged SET sess_expire ='$exp' WHERE session_id = '$sid'";
$res = mysql_query($sql);
// garbage collector
$sql2 = "UPDATE logged SET logged='0' WHERE sess_exp < '$now' ";
$res2 = mysql_query($sql2);

got it?
greets
axo

ScubaKing22

Actually I understand the code but I don't understand how it will work...If the page is visited or refreshed, which would need to happen for the code to exectue, then the time will be set current again. If that happens, then sess_exp will never be less than the current time. Please explain... One more thing; how do I get the session ID? Sorry for all the questions, but I'll be the first to admit I'm a newbie.

axo

Originally posted by ScubaKing22
... Sorry for all the questions, but I'll be the first to admit I'm a newbie.

we all were once, and still are in most situations... 😉

here's the answer:

$sid = session_id() ... after you have started the session.
also after starting the session, the hash $_SESSION is available ...

check print_r($SESSION) to view the details.
i think $SESSION['id'] should be the session_id also.

the trick of my script is:

[+] the first query is only executed for one table row, because the $sid is unique for every user being on your site (without thinking of exploits right now, makes it all complicated 😉 ).
[+] the second 'garbage collector' query sets ALL logged's to 0 where the session is 'expired' without looking at the session-ids.
by this way, users being idle longer than 5 minutes will not be marked 'logged==1' anymore.

ScubaKing22

OK thanks for that it helped. My final question (I hope...:rolleyes: ) is how many extra fields I need. I'm assuming just the extra two sess_expire and session_id are needed?

axo

hmmm... i'm not sure what you need... and what you will also use for your purposes.

id (auto_increment) | sess_id (varchar 32) | sess_start (int 10)| sess_expire (int 10) | sess_user (varchar 16) | sess_vars (text)

would be an idea... make an extra column for each variable you will be querying for (i mean all columns which will later be used in WHERE or JOIN or GROUP BY - clauses), all other variables like sites_visited, user_ip, user_referer etc. can be serialized and gzcompressed and base64_encoded in the column sess_vars.