[Wayne Luke]

We include a pseudo-total on many of our pages at SitePoint. We do it by running a cron job every 5 minutes and putting the results into a text file. We then include that text file where ever we want the information to display. Mainly in the various active topic sections throughout the network. This text file is stored in our admin directory as is the code to generate it.

Here is the script we use:

PHP Code:

// Now Online - copyright 2001 SitePoint Pty. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
<?
chdir("..");
include("global.php");
chdir("admin");

$datecut=time()-$cookietimeout;

$loggedins=$DB_site->query_first("SELECT COUNT(*) AS sessions FROM session WHERE userid=0 AND lastactivity>$datecut");
$numberguest=$loggedins['sessions'];

$numbervisible=0;
$numberregistered=0;
$loggedins=$DB_site->query("SELECT DISTINCT session.userid,username,invisible
                            FROM session
                            LEFT JOIN user ON (user.userid=session.userid)
                            WHERE session.userid<>0 AND session.lastactivity>$datecut
                            ORDER BY invisible ASC, username ASC");
while ($loggedin=$DB_site->fetch_array($loggedins)) {
  $numberregistered++;
}
$DB_site->free_result($loggedins);

$totalonline=$numberregistered+$numberguest;

($numberregistered > 1) ? ($membertext = "members")   : ($membertext = "member");
($numberguest > 1)  ? ($guesttext = "guests")   : ($guesttext = "guest");


$fp = fopen ("nowonline.txt", "w");
fwrite
(
  $fp,
  "There are currently $numberregistered $membertext and $numberguest $guesttext on the forums.<br>"
);
fclose ($fp);

?>

Feel free to use it as long as the copyright remains.