Task 3A, Task 3B, Task 3B-2

These tasks were successfully completed.

If you could pass variable contents from HTML to PHP then that would be the major problem you experience. No problem writing to the output file and no problem reading an input file hence displaying what was written to the output file. The directory navigation script presented no problem. I was able to execute the previous scripts that I had written.

Seems the going is still good for now, I haven't really gotten a problem so far, I have beeen however a bit ambitious and looked into the future and did a thing or too, not soo rosy there, will need a bit more concentration

I am starting first with the exercises given in Masterskill. Once I complete these, I will work my way through the text book. There seems to be quite a few good examples which I think will give a good basis for project develpment in the real world. I used the text book( chapter 1 ) for reference while setting up the php.ini file and http.conf file. I really found it helpful. I also read the previous forums, which were really helpful.

You need to use the textbook in conjunction with the manual, since thee manual is PHP4 and the textbook PHP5, XAMPP is PHP5, therefore you need to figureout how to adapt the PHP4 code from the manual.

Hi

I have completed these

had to switch of notices again

Thanks

Kashmira

Hi
Was not that easy but
I have completed the task

Completed tasks, interesting and very helpful (file, directory functions)

Tasks 3A, Task 3B, Task 3B-2 completed successfully

Task 3B-2 proved quite tricky

I am just having problems with this code, and check the error messages that I get,

Language: PHP
<?php
$fp = fopen("./hit.txt" , "r");
if (!$fp) die ("Cannot open ./hit.txt");
$currenthits = fread($fp, 20);
fclose($fp);
$currenthits++;
 
echo "This Web site has been viewed by $currenthits people. " ;
$fp = fopen("./hit.txt", "w");
fwrite ($fp, $currenthits);
fclose($fp);
?>

This Web site has been viewed by 1 people.
Warning: fopen(./hit.txt) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/hit_number.php on line 9

Warning: fwrite() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/hit_number.php on line 10

Warning: fclose() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/hit_number.php on line 11


Someone help me please I am drowning

the path must be wrong
./hit.txt

put hit.txt in the same directory that hit_number.php is in, and take the ./ out

Language: PHP
$fp = fopen("hit.txt" , "r");

I have completed Tasks 3A, 3B and 3B-2

But I noticed an issue with the code - if more than one user were to request the same page at the same time (eg. task 3B ), the page would not execute as expected. What would happen is the two "requests" would open the Hits.txt file at the same time, read the same number, increment it, and write the same number back to the file. Thus multiple requests resulted in the hit count only being incremented once. I looked around and the solution is to lock the resource:

Language: PHP
$fp = fopen($filename,"r+b");
if(!$fp)
    return "0"; //could not open the hits file
flock($fp,LOCK_EX);
$num = fread($fp,4); //lock the resource so it can only be accessed once at a time
$num++;
fseek($fp,0,SEEK_SET);
fwrite($fp,$num);
fclose($fp);
return $num;

In this excerpt of a function I wrote I:

* open the file
* lock the resource (with the flock function)
* read the number
* increment the number
* move the file cursor back to the begining of the file
* write the number
* close the file


I just thought that would be useful practically.

I was also reading somewhere where it states that file locking is really necessary, apparently when multi-users access and write on a particular file, before adding their data/info , they first set a file at zero, that is deleting all other records before putting their own, so at the end of day there is a potential that after a thousand or so transactions, you might just have one record - the last one. So file locking apparently solves that problem, I have not figured out how though still I guess in time I'll figure out

done with 3a,3b and 3b-2 get little time to make these posts
but well on tack.

Done with these tasks as well. I've never worked with HTML so it's quite a steep learning curve, but well worth it.