How to store values globally, permantly? - php

Question

I want to store some counter and want to increment as desired.
This counters are not related to any client, so i cant use session or cookies.
I tried $GLOBALS but, its not what i want.
I want something like, let say i have 3 php files, each will do some counter manuplation.
init.php
$_GLOBAL_VARIABLE['cntr1'] = 0;
file1.php
$_GLOBAL_VARIABLE['cntr1'] = $_GLOBAL_VARIABLE['cntr1'] + 7;
file2.php
$_GLOBAL_VARIABLE['cntr1'] = $_GLOBAL_VARIABLE['cntr1'] + ($_GLOBAL_VARIABLE['cntr1'] * 0.90);
file3.php
echo $_GLOBAL_VARIABLE['cntr1'];
All three files (except init.php) will called randomly without ant relation and init will called once.
I dont want to try database transaction coz counter manuplation is very frequent, and file i/o is one and the same. I am looking for some way to store my data on server till the time its up and running, somewhat like global class and variables in c#.

Answer 1

If you want the store globally accessible value in the server without the use of database, cookie or session then memcache could be a solution for you. Its a daemon which allows you to store data and use it across different connection requests. If you have frequent visits you will have to somehow handle concurrency within you application.

Answer 2

I think this will work
global $cntr1;
If not then you can make one .inc.php and include this file to all pages.
This will resolve your issue.

Answer 3

im sure this is NOT what you wanted, but i've used fileread/filewrite to store my globals in a file on the drive, which can be read from, written to with updated values etc. This allows for you to set MANY global variables as int's, I've modified my globals code to work as a iterator, counting up or counting down by what ever value you pass.
its a simple quick class i made to handle the request :
<?php
class my_global{
protected $name;
protected $value;
static protected $path = './globals/';
public function __construct()
{
if(!is_dir(self::$path))
mkdir(self::$path);
}
public function change($name, $value)
{
$current = $this->get($name);
$this->set($name,$current+$value);
return $current+$value;
}
protected function set($name, $value)
{
$this->name = $name;
$this->value = $value;
$this->write();
}
protected function get($name)
{
if(file_exists(self::$path.$name))
{
$myFile = self::$path.$name;
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'r');
$value = fread($fh, filesize($myFile));
fclose($fh);
}
else
$value = 0;
$this->name = $name;
$this->value = $value;
return $value;
}
protected function write(){
$myFile = self::$path.$this->name;
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fh, $this->value);
fclose($fh);
}
}
$my_global = new my_global();
?>
You can then just call the $my_global->change() method to increase or decrease the counter
<?php
echo $my_global->change('new_global',5).'<br>';
echo $my_global->change('anotherglobal',-2).'<br>';
echo $my_global->change('forme',7).'<br>';
?>
this is more food for thought than anything, but could be used tweaked to work as you need it.