[RESOLVED] call php file from html

abc123

This is a problem I can across for developing a counter for a friend. Basically when someone visits their homepage it will increment the count.

Sounds simple and I managed to configure it correctly on my local machine. Then all that was left to do was copy the code onto my friends website hosted by another company.

Only problem is that index.html (his homepage) is not parsed by php. At this point I felt a sick feeling in my stomach. :glare:

After a lot of testing different methods I managed to find a solution. I included a .php file into the static html page by having an image which gets the source from the php file. I have given this a height and width of 1px (needs this for firefox to call it) and then made it hidden.

There is no problems on the homepage and by accessing the php file it makes the server execute it and hence increment the page count.

While I have solved the problem I am feeling there must be a more professional way to do this.

Does anyone else have another method for getting static html to call a php file so that it is executed?

Thanks in advance.

bogu

That's the method to do ...

Rodney_H_

I would just have your friend change the file extension on the index from .html to .php

That would make more sense to me...

Litewebsite

You could also parse the html file as php. See this thread getting Apache to parse html as php .

Maybe that can help you?

abc123

If it was on my server then I would have it parse html. It's with a hosting company so can't change any server stuff.

As for changing the file name to php. Well I could do that but then I get the hassle of changing all the links in the website to point to index.php instead of index.html. Really not wanting to get into doing all that changing for what is a really simple counter.

I'll mark this as resolved shortly. Just incase someone else knows of a different way to call a php file.

Thanks for the replies though. Your help is hugely appreciated.

Installer

You can use an html meta tag:
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0; URL=otherindex.php">

Or use javascript:
document.location = "otherindex.php";

Or stick with the way you're doing it, which, as bogu suggested, is a common method.

abc123

I'll have a look at the other methods you suggested Installer.

Thanks again for the help.

Rodney_H_

abc123 wrote:
As for changing the file name to php. Well I could do that but then I get the hassle of changing all the links in the website to point to index.php instead of index.html.

You should have planned ahead and just pointed / linked to the root directory rather than specifying a file with a specific extension.... I think that would have made the site more flexible for just this type of thing.

This will certainly be something for you to consider in the future.

abc123

Thanks for the advice.

When first putting the site up they were not interested in anything fancy and I made the assumption that it would stay that way.

You're right though... I should have planned. I've got lucky this time though. Phew!

Remember... If you fail to plan then you plan to fail.

Pitty I didn't remember that one.