Count visitors on my website

[Ciaran]

Hi I've seen this a few places - The site lists off the number of
people (not logged in) currently browsing the site. How can I do this
with php / mySQL please?

[Jerry Stuckle]

Hadron wrote:

Jerry Stuckle <js*******@attg lobal.netwrites :

>Hadron wrote:

>>>With sessions you can tell how many people have used your login
form and have yet to use your logout form, or yet to be timed
out. You can not tell how many people are "browsing the site".
Yes you can. Because even if they are not physically looking, they ARE
still browsing. Sure, we dont know if the use is asleep or on the toilet
but he IS still maintaining a session.

No, you can't. All you know is at some time he started a session.
You don't know if they are still browsing your site (or some other
site), have closed their browser or even turned off their computer.
You get NO notification when someone closes their browser or moves on
to another site.

You seem intent on complicating the issues beyond the obvious solutions
for the majority of cases.

Regardless of whether they "log out", time out or whatever, each new
session is a new visit. The counter can and does work "well enough".

Nope, I'm pointing out just how inaccurate your "method" is. You might
as well just generate a random number - it would be as accurate.

I just hope you're not selling this shite to your clients. If so, I
pity them.

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js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===

[Jerry Stuckle]

Hadron wrote:

"rf" <[e-mail] writes:

>>And I pity those clients.

You will never convice these sort of people. They, without a clear
understandin g of how the protocol actually works, will continually insist
that you can tally "current viewers". I've seen it time and time
again. I've

The viewer is the session for crying out loud.

First strike. A view is not a session.

>even explained to some of them that they will completely miss the viewer
that has obtained a copy of their page from a corporate proxy (with of
course no access at all to their server), to no avail. They simply will not
understand. It's right up there with "N people have visited this site
since..." :-)

Just let them put their meaningless counters on their web sites. It does no
harm, providing, as you say, they are not telling their "clients" that it
has meaning.

I am frightened that you seem unable to understand such simple concepts.

Second strike. That you have no idea what you're talking about - and
refuse to believe those with more experience and knowledge than you.

You know, I think you should suggest to banks that they dont really know
if someone is there and should end all session based online banking.

Or they could do the SENSIBLE thing and ASSUME in many cases that the
fact that someone opened the session means that there is a HIGH
PROBABILITY that someone os THERE. Possibly implement a time out. Oh,
they do jus that.

Third strike. Brining in a completely irrelevant topic into this
discussion.

Three strikes. YOUR OUT!

Idiot.

Agreed 100%. You ARE an idiot.
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js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===

[Jerry Stuckle]

Hadron wrote:

Jerry Stuckle <js*******@attg lobal.netwrites :

>Hadron wrote:

>>Michael Fesser <ne*****@gmx.de writes:

You are the second one in this thread who obviously didn't read the "not
logged in" in the original post
I am reading the "stateless protocol" stuff above and replying to that
in the context of PHP.

Then you're not understanding what "stateless protocol" means.

.

>>>And what does session counting tell you? Sessions can be open for hours
without any user interaction. The user could have died already in front
of his monitor and his session would still be open.
That's not the issue. Clearly something on a server cant know IF he is
reading the page or not. You can only go on the connections.

This is correct.

Good. Because that is ALL this is about.

Yes, now if you could just get your head out of your arse so you could
understand the rest.

>>"Currently online" has a meaning - and that is that HIS PC is
connected. The rest is guesswork.

There is no way to know if someone si "currently online". All you
know is he was online when he last requested a page. Anything else is
a guess.

Jesus H Christ.

Showing your lack of IQ, again? That's the only reason I can understand
to bring His name into this discussion.

Yes. But he IS connected. The session IS open. Whether he is physically
sat there is something we can NEVER know.

No, he is not. All you know is that he was connected when he made the
request. Period. No more. No less.

The session may be open - but that doesn't mean he's doing anything with
your site. All it means is that you haven't bothered to clean up the
mess he left yet.

>>>Whatever way you go - it's always just guessing. So why bother at all?
Absolute tosh.

Yep, your concept is absolute tosh.

Balderdash.

Only in your mind and that of those otherwise completely lacking in
understanding about how the Internet works. Fortunately, most of us are
more informed - and more intelligent - than you.

>>>Why show a questionable "informatio n" that is of absolutely no use for
the visitor? Just to show how cool and active the "community" is? If you
want that you can use rand() - it's much easier than all others
methods.
As I said - you are clueless.

Yep, you are totally clueless. You have absolutely no idea how this
works, and think you can pull the wool over experienced programmers'
eyes.

What ARE you talking about? I have implemented session based web sites.

So? You've implemented sessions. Bully for you. It's something
anyone with a second grade education and a computer can do.

It doesn't mean you have any idea what you're talking about. But your
other posts here have proven you don't.

>You can do it to clueless clients. But you can't do it here.

And I pity those clients.

Ye gods. Go get a clue.

Yep, I agree. You need to get a clue.

Suggestion - learn from those in this newsgroup who know more than you.
But I know you won't. Your kind never do.

And unfortunately, you create a bad name for the rest of us who really
do know what's going on. But we do our best to expose your fraud.

--
=============== ===
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===

[noidtluom]

On Jul 15, 8:09 pm, Jerry Stuckle <jstuck...@attg lobal.netwrote:

Hadron wrote:

Jerry Stuckle <jstuck...@attg lobal.netwrites :

Hadron wrote:
Michael Fesser <[e-mail] writes:

>>You are the second one in this thread who obviously didn't read the "not
logged in" in the original post
I am reading the "stateless protocol" stuff above and replying to that
in the context of PHP.

Then you're not understanding what "stateless protocol" means.

.
And what does session counting tell you? Sessions can be open for hours
without any user interaction. The user could have died already in front
of his monitor and his session would still be open.
That's not the issue. Clearly something on a server cant know IF he is
reading the page or not. You can only go on the connections.

This is correct.

Good. Because that is ALL this is about.

Yes, now if you could just get your head out of your arse so you could
understand the rest.

>"Currently online" has a meaning - and that is that HIS PC is
connected. The rest is guesswork.

There is no way to know if someone si "currently online". All you
know is he was online when he last requested a page. Anything else is
a guess.

Jesus H Christ.

Showing your lack of IQ, again? That's the only reason I can understand
to bring His name into this discussion.

Yes. But he IS connected. The session IS open. Whether he is physically
sat there is something we can NEVER know.

No, he is not. All you know is that he was connected when he made the
request. Period. No more. No less.

The session may be open - but that doesn't mean he's doing anything with
your site. All it means is that you haven't bothered to clean up the
mess he left yet.

>>Whatever way you go - it's always just guessing. So why bother at all?
Absolute tosh.

Yep, your concept is absolute tosh.

Balderdash.

Only in your mind and that of those otherwise completely lacking in
understanding about how the Internet works. Fortunately, most of us are
more informed - and more intelligent - than you.

>>Why show a questionable "informatio n" that is of absolutely no use for
the visitor? Just to show how cool and active the "community" is? If you
want that you can use rand() - it's much easier than all others
methods.
As I said - you are clueless.

Yep, you are totally clueless. You have absolutely no idea how this
works, and think you can pull the wool over experienced programmers'
eyes.

What ARE you talking about? I have implemented session based web sites.

So? You've implemented sessions. Bully for you. It's something
anyone with a second grade education and a computer can do.

It doesn't mean you have any idea what you're talking about. But your
other posts here have proven you don't.

You can do it to clueless clients. But you can't do it here.

And I pity those clients.

Ye gods. Go get a clue.

Yep, I agree. You need to get a clue.

Suggestion - learn from those in this newsgroup who know more than you.
But I know you won't. Your kind never do.

And unfortunately, you create a bad name for the rest of us who really
do know what's going on. But we do our best to expose your fraud.

--
=============== ===
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstuck...@attgl obal.net
=============== ===- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hello there,
Sorry if I have not read the whole topic and this hasn't been answered
before, but here is my technique. It's rather a simple hack.
On a page, I would simply register the IP address and the current time
that the page was pinged in a mysql database. Then whenever somebody
viewed a page, it would check for any records in that database within
so many seconds. If it was within that range, it would say this person
was online. So you would simply have to just give the total number of
records.
Cheers.

As for the HTTP stuff, I seriously don't think it is very related,
this is a practical question, not theory.

[Michael Fesser]

..oO(noidtluom)

>Sorry if I have not read the whole topic and this hasn't been answered
before, but here is my technique. It's rather a simple hack.
On a page, I would simply register the IP address and the current time
that the page was pinged in a mysql database.

Hrrmpf ... whenever you think it can't get worse, somebody comes along
and proves that you're wrong ... :(

Using the IP to "identify" a user is even more unreliable than anything
else (even session counting would get you closer to the reality). There
could be a hundred visitors on your site using the same IP (proxies) or
a single visitor using multiple different IPs (dialup, load balancers).
Back to rand() again.

OK, next try. Who wants? SCNR

>As for the HTTP stuff, I seriously don't think it is very related,
this is a practical question, not theory.

Correct. And in practice it simply can't work.

Micha

[Gordon Burditt]

>Sorry if I have not read the whole topic and this hasn't been answered

>before, but here is my technique. It's rather a simple hack.

Please explain what the result *MEANS*. Pretend that you are in
court trying to explain why the numbers your employer got from this
are not fraudulent and not grossly misleading. It is not uncommon
to want such numbers for something relating to advertising and
billing therefor.

>On a page, I would simply register the IP address and the current time
that the page was pinged in a mysql database.

There is no such operation as "pinging a page". You probably mean
"a request for the page was made with the HTTP protocol". You also
need to decide how to count these: one page from the point of view
of the user can involve multiple requests for the page, images,
frames, etc. that make for a lot of multiple counting. If you are
mostly interested in the last time the requests came in, though, that
bunch of requests usually come close together.

There are many known problems with using an IP address as an
identifier. A large number of AOL customers can appear to have the
same IP address. So can entire offices behind a NAT gateway or
proxy. Also, it is possible for a *single* customer to fetch
portions of the page (images, etc.) with what appears to be different
IP addresses due to load-balanced proxys.

>Then whenever somebody
viewed a page, it would check for any records in that database within
so many seconds. If it was within that range, it would say this person
was online.

Please describe how you determine "so many seconds", and why it
shouldn't be 20% higher or 20% lower.

>So you would simply have to just give the total number of
records.

And this number means *what* when "so many seconds" is 1? And when
"so many seconds" is 7 years?

>As for the HTTP stuff, I seriously don't think it is very related,
this is a practical question, not theory.

HTTP requests are what make the web work. If you want to come up
with some statistics about how loaded your web server is, you might
want to track how often you get requests for a page or image ("hit").
These, at least, are fairly easy to count. How you translate that
into user counts is *much* more iffy.

[Jerry Stuckle]

noidtluom wrote:

On Jul 15, 8:09 pm, Jerry Stuckle <jstuck...@attg lobal.netwrote:

>Hadron wrote:

>>Jerry Stuckle <jstuck...@attg lobal.netwrites :
Hadron wrote:
Michael Fesser <[e-mail] writes:
>You are the second one in this thread who obviously didn't read the "not
>logged in" in the original post
I am reading the "stateless protocol" stuff above and replying to that
in the context of PHP.
Then you're not understanding what "stateless protocol" means.
.
>And what does session counting tell you? Sessions can be open for hours
>without any user interaction. The user could have died already in front
>of his monitor and his session would still be open.
That's not the issue. Clearly something on a server cant know IF he is
reading the page or not. You can only go on the connections.
This is correct.
Good. Because that is ALL this is about.

Yes, now if you could just get your head out of your arse so you could
understand the rest.

>>>>"Currentl y online" has a meaning - and that is that HIS PC is
connected . The rest is guesswork.
There is no way to know if someone si "currently online". All you
know is he was online when he last requested a page. Anything else is
a guess.
Jesus H Christ.

Showing your lack of IQ, again? That's the only reason I can understand
to bring His name into this discussion.

>>Yes. But he IS connected. The session IS open. Whether he is physically
sat there is something we can NEVER know.

No, he is not. All you know is that he was connected when he made the
request. Period. No more. No less.

The session may be open - but that doesn't mean he's doing anything with
your site. All it means is that you haven't bothered to clean up the
mess he left yet.

>>>>>Whatever way you go - it's always just guessing. So why bother at all?
Absolute tosh.
Yep, your concept is absolute tosh.
Balderdash.

Only in your mind and that of those otherwise completely lacking in
understandin g about how the Internet works. Fortunately, most of us are
more informed - and more intelligent - than you.

>>>>>Why show a questionable "informatio n" that is of absolutely no use for
>the visitor? Just to show how cool and active the "community" is? If you
>want that you can use rand() - it's much easier than all others
>methods.
As I said - you are clueless.
Yep, you are totally clueless. You have absolutely no idea how this
works, and think you can pull the wool over experienced programmers'
eyes.
What ARE you talking about? I have implemented session based web sites.

So? You've implemented sessions. Bully for you. It's something
anyone with a second grade education and a computer can do.

It doesn't mean you have any idea what you're talking about. But your
other posts here have proven you don't.

>>>You can do it to clueless clients. But you can't do it here.
And I pity those clients.
Ye gods. Go get a clue.

Yep, I agree. You need to get a clue.

Suggestion - learn from those in this newsgroup who know more than you.
But I know you won't. Your kind never do.

And unfortunately, you create a bad name for the rest of us who really
do know what's going on. But we do our best to expose your fraud.

--
============== ====
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstuck...@attg lobal.net
============== ====- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hello there,
Sorry if I have not read the whole topic and this hasn't been answered
before, but here is my technique. It's rather a simple hack.
On a page, I would simply register the IP address and the current time
that the page was pinged in a mysql database. Then whenever somebody
viewed a page, it would check for any records in that database within
so many seconds. If it was within that range, it would say this person
was online. So you would simply have to just give the total number of
records.
Cheers.

As for the HTTP stuff, I seriously don't think it is very related,
this is a practical question, not theory.

Even less reliable. What do you do about corporate users - where
everyone shares one (or two) ip addresses (the proxies/gateways)?

Or very large corporations and ISP's (like AOL) which have a whole bunch
of proxies, and every request can come from a different IP address?

IP addresses are even less reliable than sessions.

--
=============== ===
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===

[rf]

"Jerry Stuckle" <js*******@attg lobal.netwrote in message
news:cL******** *************** *******@comcast .com...

noidtluom wrote:

>On Jul 15, 8:09 pm, Jerry Stuckle <jstuck...@attg lobal.netwrote:

>>Hadron wrote:
Jerry Stuckle <jstuck...@attg lobal.netwrites :
Hadron wrote:
>Michael Fesser <[e-mail] writes:
>>You are the second one in this thread who obviously didn't read the
>>"not
>>logged in" in the original post
>I am reading the "stateless protocol" stuff above and replying to
>that
>in the context of PHP.
Then you're not understanding what "stateless protocol" means.
.
>>And what does session counting tell you? Sessions can be open for
>>hours
>>without any user interaction. The user could have died already in
>>front
>>of his monitor and his session would still be open.
>That's not the issue. Clearly something on a server cant know IF he
>is
>reading the page or not. You can only go on the connections.
This is correct.
Good. Because that is ALL this is about.
Yes, now if you could just get your head out of your arse so you could
understand the rest.

>"Current ly online" has a meaning - and that is that HIS PC is
>connecte d. The rest is guesswork.
There is no way to know if someone si "currently online". All you
know is he was online when he last requested a page. Anything else is
a guess.
Jesus H Christ.
Showing your lack of IQ, again? That's the only reason I can understand
to bring His name into this discussion.

Yes. But he IS connected. The session IS open. Whether he is physically
sat there is something we can NEVER know.
No, he is not. All you know is that he was connected when he made the
request. Period. No more. No less.

The session may be open - but that doesn't mean he's doing anything with
your site. All it means is that you haven't bothered to clean up the
mess he left yet.

>>Whateve r way you go - it's always just guessing. So why bother at
>>all?
>Absolute tosh.
Yep, your concept is absolute tosh.
Balderdash .
Only in your mind and that of those otherwise completely lacking in
understandi ng about how the Internet works. Fortunately, most of us are
more informed - and more intelligent - than you.

>>Why show a questionable "informatio n" that is of absolutely no use
>>for
>>the visitor? Just to show how cool and active the "community" is? If
>>you
>>want that you can use rand() - it's much easier than all others
>>methods .
>As I said - you are clueless.
Yep, you are totally clueless. You have absolutely no idea how this
works, and think you can pull the wool over experienced programmers'
eyes.
What ARE you talking about? I have implemented session based web sites.
So? You've implemented sessions. Bully for you. It's something
anyone with a second grade education and a computer can do.

It doesn't mean you have any idea what you're talking about. But your
other posts here have proven you don't.

You can do it to clueless clients. But you can't do it here.
And I pity those clients.
Ye gods. Go get a clue.
Yep, I agree. You need to get a clue.

Suggestion - learn from those in this newsgroup who know more than you.
But I know you won't. Your kind never do.

And unfortunately, you create a bad name for the rest of us who really
do know what's going on. But we do our best to expose your fraud.

--
============= =====
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstuck...@att global.net
============= =====- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hello there,
Sorry if I have not read the whole topic and this hasn't been answered
before, but here is my technique. It's rather a simple hack.
On a page, I would simply register the IP address and the current time
that the page was pinged in a mysql database. Then whenever somebody
viewed a page, it would check for any records in that database within
so many seconds. If it was within that range, it would say this person
was online. So you would simply have to just give the total number of
records.
Cheers.

As for the HTTP stuff, I seriously don't think it is very related,
this is a practical question, not theory.

Even less reliable. What do you do about corporate users - where everyone
shares one (or two) ip addresses (the proxies/gateways)?

Or very large corporations and ISP's (like AOL) which have a whole bunch
of proxies, and every request can come from a different IP address?

IP addresses are even less reliable than sessions.

--
=============== ===
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===

[noidtluom]

On Jul 15, 11:35 pm, Michael Fesser <[e-mail] wrote:

.oO(noidtluom)

Sorry if I have not read the whole topic and this hasn't been answered
before, but here is my technique. It's rather a simple hack.
On a page, I would simply register the IP address and the current time
that the page was pinged in a mysql database.

Hrrmpf ... whenever you think it can't get worse, somebody comes along
and proves that you're wrong ... :(

Using the IP to "identify" a user is even more unreliable than anything
else (even session counting would get you closer to the reality). There
could be a hundred visitors on your site using the same IP (proxies) or
a single visitor using multiple different IPs (dialup, load balancers).
Back to rand() again.

OK, next try. Who wants? SCNR

As for the HTTP stuff, I seriously don't think it is very related,
this is a practical question, not theory.

Correct. And in practice it simply can't work.

Micha

Hello,

Well, I was simply trying to give a practical solution that can be
used. I myself have never done this sort of thing, but off the top of
my head that is what I'll do. Anyway, I'm certain people have made
script about this sort of thing. Just google one up and see how they
did it. Or you can look into scripts such as PHPBB or IPB.

[Jerry Stuckle]

noidtluom wrote:

On Jul 15, 11:35 pm, Michael Fesser <[e-mail] wrote:

>.oO(noidtluo m)

>>Sorry if I have not read the whole topic and this hasn't been answered
before, but here is my technique. It's rather a simple hack.
On a page, I would simply register the IP address and the current time
that the page was pinged in a mysql database.

Hrrmpf ... whenever you think it can't get worse, somebody comes along
and proves that you're wrong ... :(

Using the IP to "identify" a user is even more unreliable than anything
else (even session counting would get you closer to the reality). There
could be a hundred visitors on your site using the same IP (proxies) or
a single visitor using multiple different IPs (dialup, load balancers).
Back to rand() again.

OK, next try. Who wants? SCNR

>>As for the HTTP stuff, I seriously don't think it is very related,
this is a practical question, not theory.

Correct. And in practice it simply can't work.

Micha

Hello,

Well, I was simply trying to give a practical solution that can be
used. I myself have never done this sort of thing, but off the top of
my head that is what I'll do. Anyway, I'm certain people have made
script about this sort of thing. Just google one up and see how they
did it. Or you can look into scripts such as PHPBB or IPB.

Yep, but just because people who don't know any better create scripts
doesn't mean they provide meaningful results.

--
=============== ===
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===