Problem with simple count log script

Frankc22

Hello everybody

I have a simple countlog script on my site but it now happened twice that the counter reset/change itself. It was for example 37 000 something and then just change to 300 something without any reason.


<?php
/* counter */
$datei = fopen("countlog.txt","r"); //opens countlog.txt to read
$count = fgets($datei,1000);
fclose($datei);
$count=$count + 1 ;
echo "<font color=#FFFFFF><b>$count &nbsp; </b>Page views since 1/01/2006</font>";
$datei = fopen("countlog.txt","w"); // opens to write and deletes the old count
fwrite($datei, $count);
fclose($datei); 
?>

Anyone know why this happens and have a workaround or change to the code above please?

Many thanks

crazychris

possibly due to "race conditions" where somebody has the file open for writing when it's attempted to be read by someone else. They fail, get a count of 0, then write +1 to the file, therefore resetting the counter.

Put a condition on the fopen statements so if they fail, they will loop until they succeed.

Frankc22

Thanks

I also thought that it must be something like that.

Problem is I am not a programmer and would not be able to insert such condition. (By the way. Do you know what is the 1000 at ($datei,1000); for?

jazz_snob

2nd arg is # of bytes to read from file handle: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.fgets.php

Frankc22

Can anyone perhaps help please?

frost110

jazz_snob wrote:
2nd arg is # of bytes to read from file handle: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.fgets.php

Text book answer from jazz_snob to answer your question frank. Read up on it.

Problem is I am not a programmer and would not be able to insert such condition. (By the way. Do you know what is the 1000 at ($datei,1000); for?

We all started out as not being a programmer. You know what we did? www.php.net learned =)

That site has all your answers, every single function, their parameters. Everything. For a tutorial www.webmonkey.com

--FrosT