Recording user details and writing them to a text file

[Fortune117]

Hi guys,

Currently doing a little project for college where I need to get various pieces of user information (such as Screen resolution, browser type and IP address) and then write this information to a text file. So far I have something that looks like this that has been pieced together from various bits of work

<?php
	function get_user_browser() {

		$u_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
		$ub="";

	        if(preg_match('/MSIE/i',$u_agent)) {
			$ub="ie";
			}
		elseif(preg_match('/firefox/i', $u_agent)) {
			$ub="firefox";
			}
		elseif(preg_match('/safari/i', $u_agent)) {
			$ub="safari";
			}
		elseif(preg_match('/opera/i', $u_agent)) {
			$ub="opera";
			}
		elseif(preg_match('/chrome/i', $u_agent)) {
			$ub="chrome";
			}
			
		return $ub;
		}

		$myFile="analyse.txt";
		$fileHandle= fopen ($myFile, 'a');
                $info="$ub, $_COOKIE['height'], $_COOKIE['width']\n";
                fwrite($fileHandle, $info);
				fclose($fileHandle);
?>

Could somebody tell me where im going wrong and possibly point be in the right direction here?

Many thanks,

Fortune

[TheAnimus]

Could you not use google analytics or similar?

What is currently going wrong? Are you getting the file with any output?

[Agent]

Your problem is:

$info="$ub, $_COOKIE['height'], $_COOKIE['width']\n"; 

You have a variable called $info and then you're trying to give it 3 things at once.

I'm assuming you want the string appended, given that fwrite only takes a string as the second parameter. If so, you want it in this format:

$var1 = 'Hex';
$var2 = 'us';

$var3 = $var1 . $var2;

echo($var3);

//would print "Hexus" 

So for yours:

$info="$ub" . $_COOKIE['height'] . $_COOKIE['width'] . '\n'; 

You could now use $info for fwrite.

Keep in mind that Cookie data is not safe. Sanitise it and make sure it's what your expecting, certainly if you ever want to write this to a database. Something like is_numeric() will work nicely for most things here, but also have a look at ctypes and special characters.

[TheAnimus]

but if he has magic quotes on that would work fine....

[Agent]

No PHP thread is complete until TheAnimus has posted

[Fortune117]

Thanks for the replies guys

Could you not use google analytics or similar?

What is currently going wrong? Are you getting the file with any output?

The question from the assignment states:

"Using PHP, create a web application to generate website statistics"

So I dont think Google Analytics is accepted so I thought that I could develop something using PHP that will output some basic user details to a text file such as IP address, Screen resolution, Browser etc etc.

Again, thanks a lot for the replies guys

[Fortune117]

Oh, and its throwing up this error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in /homepages/4/d399133263/htdocs/live/ip.php on line 28

Ln 28 = $info="$ub, $_COOKIE['height'], $_COOKIE['width']\n";

[Agent]

Well of course it is if you've not changed your code. Read what I wrote above - it works fine

[Fortune117]

Well of course it is if you've not changed your code. Read what I wrote above - it works fine

Forgot to save! haha Anyway, it seems that this is just writing /n to the output file. hmm..

[Digby]

Call the function rather than trying to use $ub (only exists within the function) and it should work.

$info = sprintf("%s, %d, %d\n", get_user_browser(), $_COOKIE['height'], $_COOKIE['width']); 

If so, you want it in this format:

$var1 = 'Hex';
$var2 = 'us';

$var3 = $var1 . $var3;

echo($var3);

//would print "Hexus" 

Notice: Undefined variable: var3 in ... on line 4
Hex

[Fortune117]

Just having a ponder at the assignment question and then came across this description on wikipeida..

Web analytics provides information about the number of visitors to a website and the number of page views. It helps gauge traffic and popularity trends which is useful for market research.

So wouldnt I just need to include the amount of visitors on a certain day and an amount of visitors for a month?

-Fortune

[Agent]

Notice: Undefined variable: var3 in ... on line 4
Hex

A rouge 3 appeared!
The wonders of trying to write code on a mobile phone

[Fortune117]

Okay, going on this new idea that ive had ive come up with this

www.aviodesign.co.uk/live/index.php

My question is how would I get monthly and weekly views?

[Fortune117]

For those interested the finished product is Here. A video that shows how I developed the Hit counter.