How to show a users last visited pages in wp / buddypress? - php

Question

im trying to figure out how i can show the last 3-5 or so pages within my site a person has visited. I did some searching, and I couldn't find a WP plugin that does so, if anyone knows of one, please point me in that direction :) if not, I'll have to write it from scratch, and thats where i'll need the help.
I've been trying to understand the DB and how it works. I'm assuming that this is where the magic will happen, with PHP, unless there is a javascript option using cookies to do it.
Im open to all ideas :P & Thank you

Answer 1

If i were to code such a plugin, i'd use the session cookies to populate an array via array_unshift() and array_pop(). it'd be as simple as :
$server_url = "http://mydomain.com";
$current_url = $server_url.$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
$history_max_url = 5; // change to the number of urls in the history array
//Assign _SESSION array to variable, create one if empty ::: Thanks to Sold Out Activist for the explanation!
$history = (array) $_SESSION['history'];
//Add current url as the latest visit
array_unshift($history, $current_url);
//If history array is full, remove oldest entry
if (count($history) > $history_max_url) {
array_pop($history);
}
//update session variable
$_SESSION['history']=$history;
Now i've coded this on the fly. There might be syntax errors or typos. If such a mistake appears, just put a notice and i'll modify it. The purpose of this answer is mostly to make a proof of concept. You can adapt this to your liking. Please note that i assume that session_start() is already in your code.
Hope it helps.
===============
Hey! Sorry about the late answer, i was out of town for a couple of days! :)
This addon is to answer your request for a print out solution with LI tags
Here's what i'd do :
print "<ol>";
foreach($_SESSION['history'] as $line) {
print "<li>".$line.</li>";
}
print "</ol>";
Simple as that. you should read the foreach loop here : http://www.php.net/manual/en/control-structures.foreach.php
As for the session_start();, put it before you use any $_SESSION variables.
Hope it helped! :)

Answer 2

I'm going to update and translate the code above for WordPress 5+ because the original question has the wordpress tag. Note that you don't need session_start() anywhere.
Here it goes, add the code below to your singular.php template (or single.php + page.php templates, depending on what you need):
/**
* Store last visited ID (WordPress ID)
*/
function so7035465_store_last_id() {
global $post;
$postId = $post->ID; // or get the post ID from your template
$historyMaxUrl = 3; // number of URLs in the history array
$history = (array) $_SESSION['history'];
array_unshift($history, $postId);
if (count($history) > $historyMaxUrl) {
array_pop($history);
}
$_SESSION['history'] = $history;
}
// Display latest viewed posts (or pages) wherever you want
echo '<ul>';
foreach ($_SESSION['history'] as $lastViewedId) {
echo '<li>' . get_permalink($lastViewedId) . '</li>';
}
echo '</ul>';
You can also store latest viewed custom post types (CPT) by placing the so7035465_store_last_id() function in your single-cpt.php template.
You can also add it to a hook or inject it in your template as an action, but that is beyond the scope of this question.