PHP Script for counting users online

[Anon]

Heya Gang,

Trying to find/put together a script for counting users online. I'm a newbie and I've tried searching the web and script sites with no results. I've only found scripts for countin visitors. This would be used for a forumsn on a site I'm working on.

Also wondering if php is the way to go for something like this?

I've also got sql to work with, but I figure writing to a text file is much less complicated, but I like complicated sometimes 🙂

Thanks for any input

[Anon]

If you're writing a forum, then you ought to be using SQL anyway.

And if you're writing a forum, you ought to be writing a login/authentication system, which is the right way to count active users. Anything else is guesswork.

If you're not using logins and prefer to guess, at least use session identifiers and record them in the database along with each page request. Count the number of unique identifiers within whatever reasonable timeout period you define.

[Anon]

I use a cgi script from http://www.dony.com.kg/ to count users online who are on my website; it works well and is easy to set up.