Do you like to know how many users visited your site? Creating a Web counter is very easy thing to do using asp. The only thing you have to do is to use an application server variable called count, this variable will have the value zero when your application is started for the first time, and every time anew visitor will come to your site the count variable will be incremented, the increment section will be written in the session_OnStart in the Global.asa through three steps: ¨ Lock the application server so no more than one visitor will try to increase it at the same time. ¨ Increment the count variable by one. ¨ Unlock the variable. And that’s all what you have to do to create a simple counter and here is the code. First let us do the Global.asa section:
<SCRipT LANGUAGE=VBScript RUNAT=Server> Sub Session_OnStart ' Lock the Application object Application.Lock
' Increment the count Application("count") = Application("count") + 1
' Unlock the Application object Application.Unlock End Sub </SCRIPT>
And now to show the result you just need to retrieve the count variable like this in your web page: <%@ language="vbscript"%> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Counter Example 1</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <H1> You are the visitor number <%=Application("count")%></H1> </BODY> </HTML>
Another way to do it:
Ok that’s very nice, but what will happen if the application stops for any reason? You will lose all the data stored in the application variables and that includes the count variable. To solve this PRoblem I will use another way, you need to store the value of the count variable with in a text file or database. For me I prefer database so I will use an MS access database with a table of one field called count and the field called counter of type NUMBER.
<% ' Declare the variables that will be used with our code Dim Connection, RS, ConStr, Counts
' Create and open the database connection Set Connection=Server.Createobjec t("ADODB.Connection") ConStr=("DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)}; DBQ=" & Server.MapPath ("counter.mdb")) Connection.Open ConStr
' Create the record set and retrive the counter value Set RS = Connection.Execute("SELECT * FROM count")
' Increase the counter value by one Counts=RS("counter")+1
' Update the counter value in the database Set RS = Connection.Execute ("UPDATE count SET counter =" & Counts) Connection.Close %>
<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Counter Example 2</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <H1>You are the visitor number <%=Counts%></H1> </BODY> </HTML>
What about Active users:
Some guys wants to know how many visitors are currently seeing the site, for that we will use another way, we will create an application variable called active, and on each new session we will increase it by one and when a session ends we will decrease it by one, and here is the code:
The Global.asa: <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript" RUNAT="Server">
Sub Application_OnStart 'Create the variable that will hold the number of active visitors Application("Active") = 0 End Sub
Sub Session_OnStart 'Increase the counter by one Application.Lock Application("Active") = Application("Active") + 1 Application.UnLock
End Sub
Sub Session_OnEnd ' Decrease the c ounter Application.Lock Application("Active") = Application("Active") - 1 Application.UnLock End Sub
</SCRIPT>
And to show the results just call the Application variable active in your web page just like this: <%= Application("Active")%>
I hope you can create your own counters from now on. Give it try and good luck.
