David H. Urmann asked:


Website script is a process of building professional websites. However, developing and installing scripts on a Web server can offer difficulties to those who lack technical expertise. Acquiring script installation services can save time, energy, and money.

If you have PHP or CGI script that you want to be installed on your web server but you don’t have enough time and tools to do it, ask the assistance of a script installation service company. They can install any script that is written in Php, perl, or cgi and makes use of the MySQL database. With Perl, you can avail of the language for free on the Internet. Almost all UNIX devices have Perl already integrated. With Mac or Windows, one has to download the newest release of Perl and set it up it on your device. Script installation is ideal for reading through loads of documentation and configuration of variables. It also works out the design parameters to install Php or Cgi application. You can utilize your valuable time in other productive activities like marketing your website.

The script installation provides these services:
? They configure all the variables according to their client web host parameters.
? They upload necessary files with FTP client to their customer’s web host.
? They set up all the file permissions that will ensure proper logging and script functioning.
? They test all the scripts functions that include usage, email capabilities, HTML output accuracy, configuration utilities purpose, etc.

Things that you can expect from a Script Installation Service:
? You will be certain that your script will be installed in a fast, timely, and secured manner.
? Your script will be bedded in as designed by the author.
? After the installation is completed, they will send you an email specifying the work performed, the relevant URLs, directories, script passwords, etc.
? In case the script installation service will not be competent enough to make your script work, you payments will be refunded.

Requirements that the script installation service may ask you:
? Domain name
? Send the script as provided by the script author in a zip, rar, or tar format.
? The FTP and the Control panel login details of your site.
? The folder or URL in which the script need to be installed.

The website optimization services scripts are comparatively small pieces of programming code that is intended to add definite function to a website. Nearly all modern websites will not perform accurately without any scripts. They would definitely not be able to provide the range of user improvements. Scripts come in different forms and sizes and give an enormous collection of functions, some for the advantage of the visitors and some for the webmaster. Unlike PC software, most of these scripts don’t go with simple install wizards or help screens. This makes them very difficult to install and set up.

Scripts are also often less forbearing of the many configurations web hosts use on their web servers. Scripts not installed correctly on certain web hosts, or scripts already installed but doesn’t run as it should be, can give the webmaster some troubles. Some scripts function perfectly on some web hosts yet fail to operate on other web hosting providers. In script installation, one really needs to be well knowledgeable of technical matters in addition patience and experience. The best solution is to take advantage of the Script Installation Service. They will make your life easier and your website impressive.

http://www.ebayatchristmas.com

Bill Hamilton asked:


Self-Taught PHP/MYSQL: a simple Page Counter

This article is a short introduction to PHP and MySQL using the example of a simple page counter. I will illustrate creating the database in MySQL, connecting to the database from the PHP script, querying the database for information, displaying the information in a web page, and writing the information back to the database. As always, the fastest way to master the process is to jump right in with the code, look it over and use it. We’ll make a MySQL database to store the page names and the number of page views, and use PHP to increment and display the count on a web page. First here is all of the code, and then I’ll go over it in detail:

This goes into a file called “pagecounter.php”

You’ll no doubt have noticed that the script “includes” another, so without further delay here is the “connect.php” file:

The pagecounter.php script needs a database to operate on. Just briefly, here’s how to create it.

Creating the database:

Log in to MySQL at your Unix prompt (which might be #):

# mysql –uYourUserName –pYourPassword

At the MySQL prompt enter these commands:

mysql> create database pages;

mysql> use pages;

mysql> create table counter (pagename varchar(60),hits int, stamp timestamp);

mysql> quit;

Naturally you can create the database and table with utilities or web-based interfaces, but doesn’t it seem simpler to just enter three commands?

If you just wanted some code for a simple counter, this is all you need. Put this text into an SHTML web page, or this text into a php web page, copy the above two files into the same directory, and you’re done.

The first thing you’ll have noticed about the scripts are the dollar signs ($). All variables in PHP scripts start with a $. Anything starting with a $ is a variable. Instructions – statements and functions – end with a semicolon (;). starts the script and it ends with . When your script is hosed, look at these first.

Details about the pagecounter.php script

Line 1

include_once “connect.php”;

The first line in the script is just what it appears to be. It includes whatever is in the file “connect.php”. The “_once” means that it’s only included once, even if you had the line twice in the script. The reason I’ve separated it out is that it’s all the connection stuff to the database. All the php/Mysql scripts will need it, it’s always the same, so you can just put it by itself and use the include function.

Line 2

$pagename=$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];

The next line creates a variable called $pagename and sets the value to a special pre-defined variable $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]. The brackets [ ] are used by arrays in php. $_SERVER is a pre-defined array of headers and paths. This particular one is the name of the file that accesses the script, i.e., the name of the page that the counter is in.

Line 3

$result=mysql_query(“Select * from counter where pagename=’$pagename’”);

All the database work is done with mysql_query, which sends an SQL command string to MySQL, after you’ve already logged in and connected to the database with the connect.php script. “Select * from counter where pagename=’$pagename’” replaces $pagename with its value. But there’s a quirk here – the single quotes have to be inside the double quotes. If I had it the other way around, with the single quotes outside, the query would be for the text “$pagename” instead of the value. $result is the result set. It can be any name but in tutorial scripts it’s always $result, so it is here.

Line 4

if (mysql_num_rows($result)==0){

The fourth line is the php version of “if-then”. It simply checks whether there are any results from the query in line 3. The syntax is representative of php coding in general so it’s a good place to start. The curly brackets { } are used to group instructions. The curved brackets ( ) are used for the “if” condition. Everything inside the curly brackets will be executed if the “if” condition is true. PHP uses double equals == for comparison; if I had used only a single equal sign it would try to set mysql_num_rows to 0, which wouldn’t work for our purposes. A missing equal sign is the second thing to look for when your script is hosed and it’s not missing a $ or ;.

Line 5

mysql_query(“insert into counter (pagename,hits) values (‘$pagename’,’0′)”); }

Inside the brackets, which only happens when line 4 finds no records of the page we searched for, the instruction creates a new record with the page’s name and zero for the hit count. Although mysql_query is a function, it doesn’t necessarily need a variable $result= in front of it. That’s optional in PHP if you don’t care about the return value.

The closing curly bracket } from the “if” statement comes here, since we only needed one statement to create our record.

Line 6

$count=mysql_result($result, 0, “hits”);

mysql_result fetches the actual data from the result set. You specify the result set (from mysql_query), the row number (0), and the column name (“hits”). This is a little confusing at first since to get here took four steps: 1) log into MySQL, 2) connect to the database, 3) select data from the table, and 4) fetch a particular piece of the data. Putting the repetitive first two steps into an include file where you can more or less forget about them makes it more intuitive: use SQL to select data with mysql_query, and then retrieve data with mysql_result.

Line 7

$count=$count + 1;

Just adds one to the count variable. This is the count of the page views of the page requesting the script.

Line 8

mysql_query (“update counter set hits=$count where pagename=’$pagename’”);

As with Line 5 we send an SQL command directly to MySQL. This one updates the count for just the page matching the variable $pagename.

Line 9

echo “Page Count: “.$count;

The echo function writes text to a web page, in this case the text “Page Count: “ followed by whatever value is in $count. The period in between is the PHP concatenation operator: it simply adds the two strings together. Echo sees it as one string and outputs it.

Details about the connect.php script:

All this script does is connect to the MySQL server and select the Database.

Line 1

$host=”localhost”;$user=”YourUserName”;$password=”YourPassword”;$dbase=”pages”;

These are the inputs for the connect and select_db functions. Naturally you can insert the values into the functions on line 3 and 4 and eliminate this line, but it’s simpler to change later (when you re-use this code for example) if you just list them out at the top. The host and dbase won’t need to be changed in this example. The user and password are specific to your MySQL setup. As shown here you can put as many statements on one line as you want; PHP doesn’t care.

Line 2

// change the user and password to your MySQL user and password

The double slashes // denote a comment line that is ignored by php. Each comment line needs the slashes.

Line 3

$connect = mysql_connect($host,$user,$password);

You log into your MySQL with the mysql_connect command. You would change the host from “localhost” to the database server if you were accessing MySQL from another server, provided you’ve set up the access rights for the specified user/

Line 4

mysql_select_db($dbase,$connect);

Since we can have multiple databases in the MySQL server, we have to select one before sending SQL statements to it. As I mentioned earlier, this part is repetitive, and once it’s in this file and working you can forget about it.

In this tutorial we’ve examined a simple but functional web page counter implemented with PHP/MySQL. We examined the basic syntax of PHP statements and variables, the PHP “include” function and “if” control function, and the fundamental PHP MySQL functions mysql_connect, mysql_select_db, mysql_query, mysql_num_rows, and mysql_result. For further reference the reader should bookmark http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/6.0/en/index.html and http://us.php.net/manual/en/funcref.php .

Bill Hamilton is a former Database Administrator for United News and Media, and VNU inc. He currently operates several php/mysql driven websites including Gemstones and Beads

http://www.senior-citizen-information-services.com

John Dixon asked:

It’s very simple to run a script (for example, a CGI script) by clicking a button in a form:(Note: For display purposes, the code snippets in this article use square brackets ‘[' instead of angle brackets. You will need to change these to angle brackets in order to use the code.)[form name="form1" method="post" action="/cgi-bin/updatePage.cgi"]::[/form]Sometimes, however, you might need to run a script automatically from within a web page without requiring the user to perform an action. You might want to do this if, for example, you have one or more variables that have been generated perhaps by another script, which you need to process without user interaction.If you insert the following code into an HTML page, the script (in our case, updatePage.cgi) will be automatically executed when the web page is loaded into a browser.[img src="/cgi-bin/updatePage.cgi" height="1" width="1"]In order to ensure that a broken link is not generated by the cgi script itself, include the following code in the cgi script itself.print “Content-type: image/gif”; open IN, ‘image.gif’ or die “Cannot open: $!”; binmode IN; print while ; close IN;There also needs to be an image called image.gif in the same directory (cgi-bin) as the cgi script.I often use this technique to automatically perform certain text processing activities in my content management systems. For example, I might have one or more ASCII files that need to be automatically updated at the end of an operation, but I don’t want to force the user to click, for example, an update button.

http://www.runescapetreasure.com

Tom Heston asked:


I just upgraded to the latest version of PHP by switching to a new dedicated server. Several of my websites have login PHP scripts. These no longer work. It appears that the variables are not being passed from the form to the php script.

Is there some simple way to fix this?
was running 4.3.2 now 5.1.4

vBulletin works, but my own scripts have bugs, the major one being an inability to pass variables from a form (html page) to a php script.

http://www.seniorcitizenissues.com