Counter stored in .txt file not incrementing - php

Question

So I've just now edited the Code I've posted to make it much nicer to read...
This first block of code is my Counter Code used for the hits on a succesfull submition button. But for some reason the value of $Total will not increase by 1 even tho it was a succesfull submition.
<?php
$f = fopen('count.txt', 'r+'); // use 'r+' instead
$total = fgets ($f);
flock($f, LOCK_EX); // avoid race conditions with concurrent requests
$total = (int) fread($f, max(1, filesize('count.txt'))); // arg can't be 0
/*if someone has clicked submit*/
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
rewind($f); // move pointer to start of file so we overwrite instead of append
fwrite($f, ++$total);
}
fclose($f);
?>
And here is the submition button which I'm using to submit my form.
<input type="reset" value="Formular löschen" style="width:49%" />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Formular absenden" style="width:49%" />
Im trying to use this coed for my Club so that when the People submit the form they get the number as a refference Number also sent to them in the email sent.
I really hope thet there is a eays way of doing this without a DB.
Mark
If you want to see what i mean what the problem is, here is the page with the code impelemented.

Answer 1

First of all a couple of tips you may find useful when you are manipulating files:
You have to always check the files and folders permissions, just to make sure.
Be careful with multi-thread code, you may get really unexpected results when several threads are changing a file at the same time, so try to control that using locks, as you did.
I think you missed you <form> tag, so I had to invent my own one.
Use this code as a guide to make your own one:
<form method="post" action="test.php">
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
<?php
// Thread-safe <-- Use me
function incrementFile ($file){
$f = fopen($file, "r+") or die("Unable to open file!");
// We get the exclusive lock
if (flock($f, LOCK_EX)) {
$counter = (int) fgets ($f); // Gets the value of the counter
rewind($f); // Moves pointer to the beginning
fwrite($f, ++$counter); // Increments the variable and overwrites it
fclose($f); // Closes the file
flock($fp, LOCK_UN); // Unlocks the file for other uses
}
}
// NO Thread-safe
function incrementFileSimplified ($file){
$counter=file_get_contents('count.txt');
$counter++;
file_put_contents('count.txt', $counter);
}
// Catches the submit
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
incrementFile("count.txt");
}
?>
Hope this helps you! :)

Answer 2

This happens because you never set $total before writing it to the file.
You need to set $total by reading its value from the file, like this:
$total = fgets ($f) right after fopen function call.
However, you may have troubles with concurrency without exclusive file lock so you may lose some submissions count.