Sequential pages instead of 'Random'

[kilbey1]

I picked up the code below off the web somewhere, which includes a page randomly into a certain page. The page in action is here. As you can see, each time the viewer refreshes the page, sometimes you get page 1 several times in a row. Is there a way I can cycle through the pages and show a new one each time until the end is reached? The pages are currently in a directory of their own.

Thanks,
Eve

<?php
//***************EDIT FROM HERE*********************
//Any directory name should end by the trailing "/"
$directoryName="front/";//replace the "./" by the name 
// of the directory where your pages are placed, note that the trailing "/" is mandatory
// Note that this should be a relative path to the directory where this file is located
//
$pageExtension=".php";// in this case, we are randomly displaying .html files (note the ".")
// note that all pages you want to randomly display should have the same extension
// In the directory specified above by the variable "$directoryName", you can put just anything...
// from images to movies, other subdirectpries....etc.... just anything.... but, 
// make sure that the files you want to display randomly are the only one in that directory
// having the extension (in this example ".html") .... so you put there only ".html" files that 
// you want to display randomly..... and can add other non .html files as well
// You may change the $pageExtension variale to ".php" , ".htm" or what ever ... but then, all that
// type of file will be randomly displayed!
// 
/*
********************* STOP EDITING HERE ***********************************
*
* aaPHPrandomPage, version 1.0
* August 2002, Arcadius Ahouansou. 
* for any comment or suggestion please email me at: [email][e-mail][/email]
* A simple function for displaying random images and flash movies.
* a working demo of this script is running at: 
* [url]http://ahouans.sh.cvut.cz/projects/aaPHPrandomPage/[/url]
********************************************************************************/

function displayAaPHPrandomPage($dirname, $extension){
  $dirhandle = opendir($dirname) or die("ERROR opening ".$dirname);
  while (false !== ($file = readdir($dirhandle))) {
  global $SCRIPT_NAME ;

if ( !@is_dir($file) && (substr_count($file,$extension) !=0) && ( substr_count($SCRIPT_NAME,$file)==0)) {
  $filelist[] = $file;

}
  }
  closedir($dirhandle); 

  srand((double)microtime()*1000000);
  $pageNumber = rand(0, sizeof($filelist) - 1);
  $pageName=$dirname.$filelist[$pageNumber];

  include($pageName);  

  return ;

  }

[tekky]

do you have access to mySQL on that site? if not, then you woul dhave to create datafiles on the server that PHP can read/write to each time the page loads....

[kilbey1]

I do have access to MySQL, sure. The script as is now currently reads from a data directory, with a host of .php pages within that directory that are included on the calling page.

I guess I'm wondering if there's any way to change the code to read the files sequentially, ie. if i renamed them in the folder to page1, page2, page3 and page4.php, how I could manipulate the code to read the following number.

• Eve

[tekky]

you would need some way of tracking the previous page displayed. Hence the SQL question. Either you will need to have the page open and write to a data file, or insert the previous page into an SQL table that you can query each time the page loads

[kilbey1]

Ah, I see. So I could track by timestamp, for example?

[DonChris]

you could also do something like this:

in page1.php:

<?php

$myindex=1;
// your stuff follows...
?>

and in your index.php:

$maxindex=10; // supposed you have page1.php - page10.php

include_next_page($maxindex,$myindex);

function include_next_page($maxindex,$myindex)
{
	if( $myindex>=$maxindex || ! isset($myindex) )
	{
		$myindex=0;
	}
	$myindex++;

$path="/web/thepages/";
$page=$path."page".$myindex.".php";
include ($page);

}

[tekky]

Originally posted by kilbey1
Ah, I see. So I could track by timestamp, for example?

yah, you could track by timestamp or host, or however, including track the overall page displays for each page

---

regards to the code posted by the other person... that wont work for displaying changing pages per view

you are lacking a way of tracking the last page viewed, it has to involve some way of storing data to accomplish what she's lookin for....

[kilbey1]

DonChris, tekky is correct. It doesn't change pages per view, or at least doesn't seem to. I'll post my code at the very end.

tekky - i'm not sure how to go about what you suggest. In trying to think this out... I'd need to first query the DB, and get the timestamp of all fields (4, in this case). Take the last timestamp and display. Immediately insert a new timestamp upon page load.

But the main problem here I can see is, what happens if there happen to be 2 concerrent accesses of that page? They don't even have to be the same page, since once that page has a new timestamp, the next user will end up seeing say, page3 on his/her first view.

• Eve

<?php
    $maxindex=4; // supposed you have page1.php - page10.php

//include_next_page($maxindex,$myindex);

function include_next_page($maxindex,$myindex)
{
    if( $myindex>=$maxindex || ! isset($myindex) )
    {
        $myindex=0;
    }
    $myindex++;

    $path="front/";
    $page=$path."page".$myindex.".php";
    include ($page);

}



$szTitle = ''; 
$category = 0; 
$scategory = 0; 
include('display.php'); 
head('','0','0');
?>
<div align="center">
    <img src="images/pixel_white.jpg" width="300" height="30"><br>
  <?      include_next_page($maxindex,$myindex);
  /*displayAaPHPrandomPage($directoryName, $pageExtension)*/
  ?>

[kilbey1]

The code below works somewhat as well... but I would like to make it not 'quite' so random. IE: If last number was 4, don't use this, but use any OTHER number instead.

srand ((double) microtime() * 1000000);
$randnum = rand(1,4);

$tempbackground = array(
"",
"front/page1.php",
"front/page2.php",
"front/page3.php",
"front/page4.php",
);

$szTitle = ''; 
$category = 0; 
$scategory = 0; 
include('display.php'); 
head('','0','0');
?>
<div align="center">
    <img src="images/pixel_white.jpg" width="300" height="30"><br>
  <?
  //=displayAaPHPrandomPage($directoryName, $pageExtension)
  include($tempbackground[$randnum]);
  ?>
  <br> 

[leatherback]

Hi Kilbey,

What you COULD consider.. Use a cookie to store which pages have been displayed on a vertain system, or -if your number of visiters is limited- use a mysql table in which you keep track of accesses for individual IP numbers, which is a fool-proof as you can do this, I think... You could even use this data then to generate statistics from?

J.

[tekky]

<?
//db stuff
$maxpage = 10; //10 pages total
$query = "SELECT lastpage FROM table WHERE site='www.mysite.com'";
$result = mysql_query($query);
if (mysql_num_rows($result) < 1)
{
  $page = rand(1,$maxpage); //no results so assume no previous page viewed
}
else 
{
  $row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
  while(($page = rand(1,$maxpage)) == $row['lastpage']) //loop until $page doesnt equal the last page shown
}
include('/www/html/page' . $page. '.html'); //now include the page that doesnt match the last page shown
mysql_query("UPDATE table SET lastpage=$page WHERE site='www.mysite.com'");
?>