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i have a blog system which has articles inside a database, now i want to build a feature where it displays five of the most popular articles in the database, according to how many views it gets.
Is there any sort of technology out there which i can take advantage of where it states how many views a page has received, and IS able to be integrated into a database.
Or perhaps there is a better internal method of doing something like this?
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: If you are going do down vote my thread randomly, at least tell me why.
You have three choices as an approach for this obviously:
you collect the usage count inside your database (a click counter)
you extract that information from the http servers access log file later
you could implement a click counter based on http server request hits
Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages. The first obviously means you have to implement such a counter and modify your database scheme. The second means you have asynchronous behavior (not always bad), but the components depend on each other, so your setup gets more complex. So I would advise for the first approach.
A click counter is something really basic and typical for all cms/blog systems and not that complex to implement. Since the content is typically generated dynamically (read: by a script) you typically have one request per view, so it is trivial to increment a counter in a table recording views of pages. From there your feature is clear: read the top five counter values and display a list of five links to those pages.
If you go with the second approach then you will need to store that extracted information, since log files are rotated, compressed, archived and deleted. So you either need a self tailored database for that or some finished product. But as said: this approach is much more complex in the end.
The last option is nothing I saw, it just sprang to my mind. You could for example use phps (just as an example) auto append feature to run a counting routine in a generic way. That routine could interpret the request url, decide if it was a request to an article view. If so it could raise a click counter, typically in a small database, since you might have several requests at the same time, which speaks against using a file. but why make things that xomplex? Go with the first option.
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I am working on a project for a client to make their roster viewing and entry paper-free. Some things rely on user input, but others are varied constants and are pulled from a database. One of the dropdowns pulling its information from said database is loading very slowly in my testing environment - I click it, and it takes two to three seconds for the items to actually show up.
I assume this is because the dropdown contains easily close to 400 items. What I'd like to know is if there is any way I can optimize this to make the loading faster. Cutting off at halfway or even a fourth of the way and making more dropdowns is outside of specification for the project, so a suggestion like that would have to go through the client for the go ahead. If that's the only solution, though, I'll do that.
Thanks in advance for suggestions.
EDIT:
This is the kind of oversight that makes me laugh, but I was wrong about my conservative estimate of 400 items - the list contains 12,700 items.
For all who assume the SQL query may be slow - I am doing a simple SELECT DISTINCT from one table, with only one WHERE condition.
Before this question can be answered well, you'll need to do more testing and debugging to figure out what exactly is slowing things down.
Is this just a problem with your machine running something slowly?
Test things out on a real webserver and see how things go.
Is the select from the database slow? If so, that's a problem,
selects from mysql should be really fast.
Is the php slow? If so, you can use an IDE like PhpStorm to see
exactly what functions take how long to run.
Is the rendering in the client browser slow? If so, we can look at
optimizing the javascript/html.
As noted in a comment above, we also need to know when you are getting data from the database (before the page loads, or ajax). So before you can really look at how to speed this up, you need to know what is taking so long. Start there. Also make sure to check your javascript and html for any errors. Copy/paste the entire page's html into here, and fix all errors and warnings: http://validator.w3.org/#validate_by_input For javascript, check the debugger console.
You could use an infinite scroll to break up the amount of data being returned. Take a look at this answer:
infinite scroll select
This may not be the underlying issue though. I would check the performance of your query to ensure that is not where the issue lies.
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Okay, basically, I have a PHP script written all up (it's an MMORPG, so we're clear).
What I'd love to be able to do is rather than writing new (massive) files that contain the exact same data, just in one big script (so as to be able to create more of an NPC aspect to the game), I'd rather just be able to send a request to open page.php using predefined get variables (i.e., collect=Y or attack=Y etc) that would be virtually identical to how a real player send the requests, and have the system open the file, run through the file, and make whatever queries to the database it needs to before closing it.
I'm confused on how fopen works to be honest, some things I've read make me believe the above is possible, others not so much.
Any help would be appreciated.
I'm going to go out on a limb, here, and try to solve your problem (as I understand it) rather than answer your question (as you have cast it).
Your fundamental problem is that you have treated PHP files as complete units of code, with input from the query string, processing specific to that file, and output back to the user. This violates the "single responsibility principle", because there are at least three top-level responsibilities here:
Processing user input and deciding on the appropriate action
Performing an action, including manipulation of database structures
Communicating the result of an action back to the user
These can all be broken down into smaller tasks - for instance, the nitty-gritty of connecting to the database should kept out of the more abstract actions, because changing how an enemy moves, and changing that enemy to be stored in a MongoDB document rather than a MySQL table should not require changes to the same code.
The solution, therefore, is to embrace structured programming, which in modern PHP (and many other languages) usually means embracing object-oriented programming. So, at a first level of organisation, you might have:
A class for looking at the query string, checking that it makes sense, and creating an abstract list of actions described by it.
Classes representing certain actions such as "Attack" and "Collect", which take details of what is being attacked or collected from the abstract list, and return a different abstract list detailing the results.
Classes representing the player, and enemies or objects within the game, which can be used by the action classes to calculate the outcome in different situations.
Classes for taking the result of actions and displaying them to the user.
Now, instead of saying "I need to create a query string, run the code the page would run, then take the output and use it somehow" you can say "I need to create an action list, run the appropriate actions, and use the result list somehow".
It may sound like that's a lot more work than just forcing PHP to run the existing code, but the power it gives you to create new combinations of existing functionality is not to be under-estimated.
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I just have a general question. I am concerned with the speed of my PHP website, which is set to go into production soon.
My concern is the length of time it takes for the page to run a query.
On my page, I have about 14 filters in an HTML form. I am using the method GET to retrieve all the values from the filters. Granted, not all 14 filters have to be used. A user can just search off one filter. Of course, the more filters are selected, the larger the query becomes. But the larger the query becomes, the quicker the page loads. So it's beneficial for the user to select more filters over using just one filter.
All of the filter values are then sent to an INCLUDED PHP file, which then builds a query based off of the user's filtered selection.
The query runs and I am able to print the selected data into an HTML table on the original page. The problem is the it can take quite some time for the page to render and finally display the data-table.
The database is not too large. Maybe between 20K - 40K records, though there are over 20 columns per record.
When I run the same query in MySQL, it returns the data faster than it does on the page.
Here is where I believe the problem might lie.
Within the form are the filters. About 5-6 of the filters are running queries themselves to populate the selection data for the user.
I believe that after the user runs a query, the page refreshes and it has to re-run all the filter queries within the form.
If this is the case, what steps can I take to fix this issue? If any. Should I place all of the filters in a separate file and INCLUDE them within the form? If not, then please advise what I can do to speed up the page loading process.
I have visited various websites in an attempt to fix this issue. Like this one:
http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/top-20-mysql-best-practices--net-7855
I am following just about every step suggested by that site, but I am still experiencing the page load delay.
I hope I can receive some positive insight.
Thank you in advance.
What you can do is if all the filters are static and do not disappear or change view when selected / changed value you can set the filters outside of the reload view.
Currently I am building a site that is dealing with AJAX query reload and have to deal with a very similar aspect. My fields are set outside of the reload and I have very fast load times.
If they are dynamic or need to change based on options chosen then I would set them as a separate reload. Basically determining which ones changed vs what needs to be displayed.
Hopefully this helps and explains well enough.
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My boss asked me to create a easier system for finding points by having points associated with the user table in our mysql database. The old system just had events, there point values, then another table with events completed for a user, and then another table for just admin given points. So my job was to add these all together and put them in a column. Now he says the problem is that there is still all the queries running around adding points, but instead of changing them to simply add points to the users column upon task completion, they suggested i use a trigger to simply add points to the users column, when one of the other columns has points added to it.
To me this sounds like using a work-around and creating technical debt. Am i wrong?
Im new to the system, and i dont know exactly where all the queries are in the php pages, but if this is creating technical debt, what would be the appropriate way to fix this.
Im new and am probably going to just use sql triggers as to not go against my boss's suggestions, I want to at least know the smart/best way to do things.
Doing my best to provide not actual, but near actual db schema
EVENT: ID, point value, Desc
User-Events: USERID, EVENTID, COMPLETION-STATUS
GIVEN-POINTS:USERID, POINTS_GIVEN, DESC (Each time points are given, so its more of a log than updated points)
I added a Points column to the basic USER TABLE
the trigger would be when user-Event completion-status =done, find point value, add to points in user, instead of changing queries to do that.
Triggers are a perfectly valid way to accomplish what you are trying to do, as long as the business rules are fairly simple.
There are lots of ways to accomplish moving data from one table to another. You can use triggers, some sort of synchronous PHP process or an asynchronous process using some sort of message queue.
Triggers have the benefit of being simple and fast to code, maintain, and run. The upside is that you only have to do the code once, which is especially nice since you don't know where all the queries that touch these tables are. The downside is that you could be putting business logic into the database, which is where you might start getting into technical debt. The other downside is simply that you've added another business layer, which might not be obvious to the next developer, so they might spend a lot of time trying to figure out how and why the summary table is being updated. Comments are a good thing, in this case.
Synchronous PHP processes are are nice in that it's very obvious where the code is being executed. The other upside is that you have access to the whole PHP application context and can create more complex business rules. The downside is that you will have to put the function or method call into each place where the table is potentially being touched.
Asynchronous PHP processes have the same up and downsides as the synchronous PHP processes, with the added benefit that they aren't going to slow down the user experience. They are also a little more complex to create; you have to handle cases where the messages aren't received, or aren't received in the correct order.
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I want to keep logs of some things that people do in my app, in some cases so that it can be undone if needed.
Is it best to store such logs in a file or a database? I'm completely at a loss as to what the pros and cons are except that it's another table to setup.
Is there a third (or fourth etc) option that I'm not aware of that I should look into and learn about?
There is at least one definite reason to go for storing in the database. You can use INSERT DELAYED in MySQL (or similar constructs in other databases), which returns immediately. You won't get any return data from the database with these kinds of queries, and they are not guaranteed to be applied.
By using INSERT DELAYED, you won't slow down your app to much because of the logging. The database is free to write the INSERTs to disk at any time, so it can bundle a bunch of inserts together.
You need to watch out for using MySQL's built in timestamp function (like CURRENT_TIMESTAMP or CUR_DATE()), because they will be called whenever the query is actually executed. So you should make sure that any time data is generated in your programming language, and not by the database. (This paragraph might be MySQL-specific)
You will almost certainly want to use a database for flexible, record based access and to take advantage of the database's ability to handle concurrent data access. If you need to track information that may need to be undone, having it in a structured format is a benefit, as is having the ability to update a row indicating when and by whom a given transaction has been undone.
You likely only want to write to a file if very high performance is an issue, or if you have very unstructured or large amounts of data per record that might be unweidly to store in a database. Note that Unless your application has a very large number of transactions database speed is unlikely to be an issue. Also note that if you are working with a file you'll need to handle concurrent access (read / write / locking) very carefully which is likely not something you want to have to deal with.
I'm a big fan of log4php. It gives you a standard interface for logging actions. It's based on log4j. The library loads a central config file, so you never need to change your code to change logging. It also offers several log targets, like files, syslog, databases, etc.
I'd use a database simply for maintainability - also multiple edits on a file may cause some getting missed out.
I will second both of the above suggestions and add that file locking on a flat file log may cause issues when there are a lot of users.