How I Count Downloads
If you look at my download links, you can see that I am giving away ZIP files through a download link that has a .php ending instead of a .zip ending. Strange - but when you start to click on the link, you get the download dialog box.
Actually, by doing so, I am telling the PHP script to log each download request in a database, and at the same, the script will also deliver ZIP content to your browser. So later, I can count how many downloads I already get.
Anyway, here’s the script to do so.
< ?php
$host = 'database_host'; // normally just localhost
$username = 'database_username';
$password = 'database_password';
$database = 'database_name';
$conn = mysql_connect($host, $username, $password);
mysql_select_db($database);
$file = '../countdown.zip';
// physical location where you store the download
$fsize = filesize($file);
header ('Content-Type: application/x-zip-compressed');
// needs to be change with appropriate MIME Type
header ('Content-Disposition: inline; filename=countdown.zip');
// change to appropriate file name
header ('Content-Length: '. $fsize);
// do download here
$fp = fopen($file,'r') or die('fail to open file');
while (!feof($fp))
{
$data = fgetc($fp);
print($data);
}
fclose($fp);
$sql = 'insert into download_count (datetime, ip)'.
'values '.
"(now(), '$_SERVER[REMOTE_ADDR]')";
$dbr = mysql_query($sql) or die($sql);
exit();
?>
Of course, you will need a table in the database. You can use the following SQL script to create the table. You can just run the script through your phpMyAdmin access.
CREATE TABLE `download_count` (
`id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
`datetime` datetime default NULL,
`ip` varchar(15) default NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
);
This is just a simple solution. For more downloads, you will need to create another table with a different name and a different script. Just rename the script and change the values of some variables in there.
Of course, you can expand this into a more complicated script. I am just giving you the simplest solution to the situation - counting download.
Oh yeah - forgot the mention. How to know how many downloads you have? You can check how many records you have in that table. That is easily determined with phpMyAdmin.
Just a note that the script also logs IP address and datetime of the download.
Have fun.
