Track Your Visitors, Using PHP
By Dennis Pallett2005-05-26
Okay, now I want to view my log file
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After a while you'll probably want to view your log file. You can easily do so by simply using a standard text editor (like Notepad on Windows) to open the log file, but this is far from desired, because it's in a hard-to-read format.
Let's use PHP to generate useful overviews for is. The first thing that needs to be done is get the contents from the log file in a variable, like so:
// Open log file
$logfile = "G:projectsphpitcontentrack your visitors using phplog.txt";
if (file_exists($logfile)) {
$handle = fopen($logfile, "r");
$log = fread($handle, filesize($logfile));
fclose($handle);
} else {
die ("The log file doesn't exist!");
}
Now that the log file is in a variable, it's best if each logline is in a separate variable. We can do this using the explode() function (http://www.php.net/explode), like so:
// Seperate each logline
$log = explode("
", trim($log));
After that it may be useful to get each part of each logline in a separate variable. This can be done by looping through each logline, and using explode again:
// Seperate each part in each logline
for ($i = 0; $i < count($log); $i++) {
$log[$i] = trim($log[$i]);
$log[$i] = explode('|', $log[$i]);
}
Now the complete log file has been parsed, and we're ready to start generating some interesting stuff.
The first thing that is very easy to do is getting the number of pageviews. Simply use count() (http://www.phpit.net/count) on the $log array, and there you have it;
echo count($log) . " people have visited this website.";
You can also generate a complete overview of your log file, using a simple foreach loop and tables. For example:
// Show a table of the logfile
echo '<table>';
echo '<th>IP Address</th>';
echo '<th>Referrer</th>';
echo '<th>Date</th>';
echo '<th>Useragent</th>';
echo '<th>Remote Host</th>';
foreach ($log as $logline) {
echo '<tr>';
echo '<td>' . $logline['0'] . '</td>';
echo '<td>' . urldecode($logline['1']) . '</td>';
echo '<td>' . date('d/m/Y', $logline['2']) . '</td>';
echo '<td>' . $logline['3'] . '</td>';
echo '<td>' . $logline['4'] . '</td>';
echo '</tr>';
}
echo '</table>';
You can also use custom functions to filter out search engines and crawlers. Or create graphs using PHP/SWF Charts (http://www.maani.us/charts/index.php). The possibilities are endless, and you can do all kinds of things!
Tutorial Pages:
» Track your visitors, using PHP
» Getting the information
» Logging the information
» Okay, now I want to view my log file
» In Conclusion...
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