Auto Update Stats From SQL Database - php

Question

I'm trying to get an effect like the http://www.minecraft.net page where it auto updates sales from a database, I've been researching this for two months now and no luck.
I have a php file which finds how many results are in a database and displays them as a number, works fine http://tzeale.com/sandbox/stats/pull.php
What I'm trying to do is get the effect like minecraft.net where it auto updates without refreshing the page. Could anyone guide me on what to do? I don't know what else to try.
Thanks.

Answer 1

hYou need to use AJAX.
setTimeout, alongside a AJAX call to that pull.php
If you are using jQuery, here is a good example on how to achieve what you want.
Added a simple logic to see if the server is dead, and eventually stop.
var failed = 0;
var limit_failed = 5;
(function updateSales( waitTime ){
waitTime = waitTime || 1000; // Set to 1 second by default
setTimeout(function(){
$.ajax({
url: 'pull.php',
success: function( response ){
// Update something with your response
alert ("sales are now at: "+ response);
updateSales(); // Recursion
},
error: function(){
// Error handling - not necessary
// If the request failed more then (limit_failed) times, you might want to stop it from checking after (limit_failed) times,
// and in the meanwhile icnrease the wait time, so the server has more time to get back online.
if( ++failed < limit_failed ){
waitTime += 1000;
updateSales( waitTime );
}
}
});
}, waitTime);
})();

Answer 2

You would use setTimeout and Ajax. setTimeout would get the data every 1000 ms (or however you set it) using Ajax to get the data.
You would wrap your display count in your html like this for example:
<span id="mycount"></span>
Then your jQuery code would look something like this:
setTimeout(function(){
$.get("/sandbox/stats/pull.php",function(data){
$("#mycount").html(data);
});
},1000);
1000 is one second, you can change it if you'd like. I don't know how to make it animate like that, but it would go inside your $.get() function once you retreive the data. Also this must be on the same domain as http://tzeale.com/ for the Ajax to work due to same origin policy
HOWEVER, After reviewing te minecraft.net site, I noticed they are loading this data into their page one time, instead of getting it every 1 second:
<script>
var justLoggedIn = false;
var totalUsers = 33652552;
var paidUsers = 6495707;
var totalUsersRate = 1.2166667;
var paidUsersRate = 0.15;
</script>
Then they are not getting live data with this. They are just getting the current amount, then keep adding 1 to it.
They make it animate using this plugin: http://timeago.yarp.com/
And still using setTimeout() to keep adding 1 to it every second. I don't think this is real users, just a counter starting at the var totalUsers