[derfelix]

Originally Posted by derekivey

Hey,

Nice ideas! I think I will add most of them, but I don't know how I would go about creating a cache for the generated banners. Do you know how I could do this?

well the way i would do it, (but i often have clumsy solutions ) ist that i would create a cache folder.. and generate the jpg or png in there.. as filename i would use a name underscore banner id (ex: statsbanner_000001.jpg)
the cache folder schould be 777
and each time a banner is created dont forget the chmode 0777 so it can be overwritten by a newly generated one.
(I forgot that one.. because it worked fine without it.. -the script being the creator- but when i upgraded to another version of my script.. i couldnt access the files anymore) heres the code snippet for the file creation:

PHP Code:

$stats_banner = "statsbanner_" . $banner_id . ".png";
@imagepng($sourcebanner, $cache_path . $stats_banner);
@chmod($cache_path . $stats_banner, 0777);
//send banner to browser
@imagepng($sourcebanner); // yes source banner.. as we just created it.. no need to fetch from disk
@imagedestroy($sourcebanner); // free memory as some systems dont do it automatically 


You probably know it.. but as i just spent 3 hours finding out why my other script didnt work after upgrade.. i thought a reminder to add the chmod wouldn't harm.. and maybe even save time
Ah yes and i think i read that php 5 doesnt like the @ in front of the commands.. but im not sure..


in the script that calls the banner...

if -> no cache banner exists for this banner id.. ->
create new one (like now) ->
but save it to cache ->
and then display it (on the fly like done now) (SEE THE CODE SNIPPET ABOVE !!)

else

if -> cache banner exists for this id.. ->
check creation time ->


if it is older than (now) minus offset ->
create new one ->
overwrite the old one ->
display it on the fly (like it is done now) (SEE THE CODE SNIPPET ABOVE !!)
else (it was created between now and (now-time offset))
do nothing and only display the cached one
with:

PHP Code:

$stats_banner = "statsbanner_" . $banner_id . ".png";
readfile($cache_path . $stats_banner); 


time offset should be changeble by admin (xx minutes) (xx hours) (maybe days) but no complicated milliseconds settings..
if no time offset is set.. then all banners are created on the fly and caching is disabled.



this would not require database for cached banner.. difference to offset is calculated by file creation time.
it would be better than to create it on change of stats.. because that would require database.

thats the way i would do it.. but there is maybe a better way..

Originally Posted by derekivey

Also, I'm not sure how I can add a plus, or negative sign right now because it would probably require me to rewrite a lot of the script. Right now, the ranks are not stored in the database, so there is no record of their old ones at all. I could probably make another table in the database to store them but not sure yet, I'll have to see about that one.
Derek

hey that is absolutely not a must.. its just a nice feature.. but i wouldn't place it top on the todo list..

felix