NEED TO INCLUDE DAILY CONTENT FROM ORDERED LIST

DaleRobbins

I have different content pages that I'd like to choose from and include in my main page web page on a daily basis. I will have anywhere from 100 to as many as 600 content pages, and want to create a script that will insert one of these each day from a ordered list (not randomly), which will cycle through the entire list then start over. I would also like the flexibility to define how many days I want a particular content file to display. Sorry, I am not using mySQL. Have any ideas?

ContentPage1 = "http://www.testsite.com/bullwinkle.html" , "2 days";
ContentPage2 = "http://www.testsite.com/rocky.html" , "6 days";
ContentPage3 = "http://www.testsite.com/mightymouse.html" , "1 day";
ContentPage4 = "http://www.testsite.com/huckleberryhound.html" , "3 days";
ContentPage5 = "http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html" , "12 days";
ContentPage6 = "http://www.testsite.com/mickeymouse.html" , "1 day";

dalecosp

Sounds doable, but first let's talk about your plan. I seem to see a conflict between these two statements:

DaleRobbins wrote:
insert one of these each day from an ordered list

DaleRobbins wrote:
flexibility to define how many days

Can you elaborate further or clarify which of these is preferable?

DaleRobbins

Sorry about that. I should have deleted the reference to "each day." Basically, I want to define how many days each content file will be included into my web page. Some content files might only be for one day each... others might be as long as ten days. Thanks for your kind reply, and any thoughts you have in this regard.

Derokorian

Logically, you'll need to know when the page was included, check that time against the current time and see if the difference is greater than the time this file should show, and if so show the next file insteadl, updating the date it was iincluded for next time you check.

const DELIMITER = "|";
list($index, $added) = explode(DELIMITER, file_get_contents('page_added'));
$files = file("list_of_files.txt");
$file = $files[$index];

if (time() - $added > $file['days'])
{
    $added = time();
    $file = $files[++$index];
}

include $file['path'];
file_put_contents('page_added', sprintf("%d%s%i", $index, DELIMETER, $added));

Something along those lines, but probably very different if what you're looking for. I wrote the code in the reply box, so no guarantees any of it works 🙂 HTH

DaleRobbins

Thanks so much, but here's what I was thinking: I'm sure this is a primitive way of doing this, but I was going to create a one-line counter txt file that includes the current time stamp, and a count number... (that increments +1 each time a content page is included).

Example one-line counter file, showing the time stamp, pipe delimiter and count:
1434499710|0

Then I would then have the script to look in the counter/timestamp file and associate the URL array (inside the script) with the incremented numbers.

ContentPage0 = "http://www.testsite.com/test.html" , "1 day";
ContentPage1 = "http://www.testsite.com/bullwinkle.html" , "2 days";
ContentPage2 = "http://www.testsite.com/rocky.html" , "6 days";
ContentPage3 = "http://www.testsite.com/mightymouse.html" , "1 day";

In other words, I will start the counter at 0, and the script will include ContentPage0 for 1 day (24 hours) from the timestamp.

At the end of the 24hrs, the page script will increment +1 again to the counter file (now reads 1), and the script will allow ContentPage1 to display for 2 days (48 hours).

At the end of the 48hrs, the page script will increment +1 again to the counter file (now reads 2), and the script will allow ContentPage2 to display for 6 days (144 hours).

At the end of the 144 hours, the page script will increment +1 again to the counter file (now reads 3), and the script will allow ContentPage3 to display for 1 day (24 hours).

When the counter reaches 999 (or whatever limit I set), it will start again from 0, and include the URL associated URL with ContentPage0.

Does this make sense? This way, I will be able to cycle through a large array of URL's, and just start the cycle over once it reaches the end.

I think this would work, but like I said, I'm sure this is a primitive way of doing this... and since I'm a PHP newbie (Duhhh!), it will take me weeks to figure out all the sequences. If you or anyone has a better way of doing this, I sould appreciate your assistance. Thank you so much!

NogDog

I might try something like this to keep the processing pretty efficient (no looping through the array, just mathematically determining which index to use. The key here is having multiple entries in the array for reach file for the number of days it is to display -- which perhaps could be generated programmatically from a separate data source if things get too large to manage manually.

$pages = array(
	"http://www.testsite.com/bullwinkle.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/bullwinkle.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/rocky.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/rocky.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/rocky.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/rocky.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/rocky.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/rocky.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/mightymouse.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/huckleberryhound.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/huckleberryhound.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/huckleberryhound.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/popeye.html",
	"http://www.testsite.com/mickeymouse.html"
);

date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');
$startDate = new DateTime('2015-02-01 00:00:00');
$daysSince = $startDate->diff(new DateTime('now'))->format('%R%a');
$ix = $daysSince % count($pages);

echo "<a href='{$pages[$ix]}'>link text</a>";

dalecosp

I'd wondered about using a filemtime() call in conjunction with touch(), but I haven't yet thought enough about it to know exactly how such a plan would work. It might require an array of dates and filenames ... or, come to think of it, you could just do such a thing ... have an array of dates and filenames, and have the script include the file who's date was the latest without being past the current date. Seems like there should be a few ways to skin this cat, no matter how weird its coloration is ;-)

dalecosp

Proposed P.O.C. for the latter thought. This probably wouldn't scale really well (it might cause loading issues as time went by on a busier site).

$files = array(
"June 1, 2015" => "foo.html",
"June 3, 2015" => "bar.html",
"June 6, 2015" => "foobar.html",
"June 11, 2015" => "barfoo.html",
"June 19, 2015" => "foobarbaz.html",
"July 1, 2015" => "foobarbazgarply.html"
);

foreach ($files as $date=>$name) {
   if (strtotime($date) < time()) {
      $file_to_include = $name;
   }
}
include $file_to_include;

DaleRobbins

Thanks for your input, but I threw this together last night so you could see what I have in mind. This script does what I want, but not very well, and will bog down after adding a couple hundred or more content URLs. Can anyone come up with a better way of doing this? Thank you!

<?php

#################################################################
##

cycle-content.php - Dale A. Robbins 6-17-2015

This script does what I want, however it is composed in what

county folk in Tennessee call, "Outhouse Style": This means

It gets the job done... but it's messy, really stinks, and

isn't the best way of doing this!

##
#################################################################

// This will include a URL/file source into a page for x duration
// of days, and then cycle to the next content URL/file. When the
// last content inclusion expires, it will start over and repeat
// the cycle.
//
// Just put this script in a folder that has permissions to create
// and write files, it will take care of the rest.
// To test cycle, replace $timestamp in cycle.log with expired time

$NowTime = time();

// Create log file if cycle.log doesn't exist
if (!file_exists("cycle.log")) {
file_put_contents("cycle.log", "$NowTime|1");
}

// Get variables from cycle.log
$counter = file_get_contents("cycle.log");
list($timestamp, $count) = explode('|', $counter);

// Assign content URL's and DurationDays

list($content1, $DurationDays1) = explode('|', "http://www.foxnews.com|+1 day");
if($count == 1){
$DurationDays = $DurationDays1;
$content = $content1;
}

list($content2, $DurationDays2) = explode('|', "http://www.cnn.com|+2 days");
if($count == 2){
$DurationDays = $DurationDays2;
$content = $content2;
}

list($content3, $DurationDays3) = explode('|', "http://www.reuters.com|+3 days");
if($count == 3){
$DurationDays = $DurationDays3;
$content = $content3;
}

list($content4, $DurationDays4) = explode('|', "http://www.wsj.com|+4 days");
if($count == 4){
$DurationDays = $DurationDays4;
$content = $content4;
}

// Just in case my code goofs and $content becomes empty, it will display default $content1
if (empty($content)){
$content = $content1;
}

// If $NowTime time is +x $DurationDays past last included $timestamp,
// then cycle.log will log new $timestamp and $count + 1

if ($NowTime >= strtotime($DurationDays, $timestamp)) {

// When $count reaches max, start over from 0
if($count >= 4) {
$count = 0;
}
$count = $count + 1;

file_put_contents("cycle.log", "$NowTime|$count");
}

// Displayed content will cycle to the next $content URL when the $DurationDays expire
// URL is pulled into Iframe below for demo purposes
// echo $content;
?>

<div style="margin: 0 auto;width:800px;">
<? echo $content; ?>
<br />
<iframe src="<? echo $content; ?>" frameborder="0" name="content" width="800" height="500" scrolling="yes">
Your browser does not support frames.
</iframe>
</div>