PHP and AOL Instant Messenger Code Help!

sois

Hello all, I run a Tecmo Super Bowl league with many members. On the front page I have a link of all the active players and their online status with AIM. Here is the link:

http://www.sois.com/tpc/main.php

As you can see, you can see the online/offline status of each member. I got this data by using a link like this:

<img src="http://big.oscar.aol.com/Your_Aim_Name?on_url=Location_Of_Your_Online_Image&off_url=Location_Of_Your_Offline_Image" border = 0 >

From what I can see, this code is querying the AIM database and returing a value. I want to only display online dudes only. Is there any way to get a value returned from that? Like 1 if a guy is online, 0 if they are offline?

Thanks!!!

bpat1434

you could query the AIM presence server and see if it gives you "online.gif" or "offline.gif"... they say they offer an XML feed, but I can't understand how to use it....

You could always use an invisible gif in place fo the off_url (won't show up in browser, but will still be there....)

sois

Using an invisible gif wont help because I don't even want to display a dude unless he is online.

herve

I suppose your have a loop with all the people ?

So before outputing a line saying something is online, you have to test.

You can replace the two URL leading to images with two URL leading to a PHP script
which will simply output 1 if online and 0 otherwise.

But how to test inside your first script ? Use the fopen() function on the
"http://big.oscar.aol.com/...." URL

The fopen() call the aol script which in his turn will call your second PHP script.

If it's not clear, I can explain with more details 🙂

herve

So the first small script replacing the offline/online image :

status.php :

<?PHP
	print $_GET["online"];
?>

It's just send back the parameter value "online" which is 1 if online, 0 otherwise.

main.php :


foreach ($array_aim_names as $aim_name)
{
	$f = fopen ("http://big.oscar.aol.com/$aim_name?on_url=http://www.your_server.com/status.php%3Fonline=1&off_url=http://www.your_server.com/status.php%3Fonline=0","r");

$status = fread ($f, 10);

if ($status == "1")
{
	// Dude is online

	print "$aim_name is online";
}
// No "else" here, we don't display anything if offline

fclose($f);
}