How to create hit counter using php

Last updated on January 24th, 2022 at 05:03 pm

Hit counter using php

Welcome, this tutorial will guide you on how to make a PHP hit counter.
Requirements: You should know the basics to a file system unit. Means you need to create a text file which is writable.

Step 1: Create a PHP script called ‘counter.php‘ and a text file called ‘hits.txt‘ WITH a value of 0 [You Just Create A Text File And Put Number ZERO On That And Save It], if you are not doing this your counter script wont work.Make sure the TXT file it has enough permissions.

Step 2: Close ‘hits.txt’ (We don’t need it any more for now) Now we need to start PHP coding, so first we do is enter the basic page outline as used in most php pages.

Step 3: We have to read the file hits.txt using a PHP script, this code is outlined below. Make sure you are providing the correct location of the hits.txt file in the script.

$open = fopen("hits.txt", "r+");
$value = fgets($open);
$close = fclose($open);
$value++;

Step 4: Now we should write the count value to the text file

$open = fopen("hits.txt", "w+");
fwrite($open, $value); // variable is not restated, bug fixed.
$close = fclose($open);

Review: Now we have the number plus one in the file ‘hits.txt’

Step 5: Let’s echo the value so that it can be included anywhere.

echo $value;

Final Talk: That is all. Here is the complete code.

<?php
$open = fopen("hits.txt", "r+");
$value = fgets($open);
$close = fclose($open);
$value++;
$open = fopen("hits.txt", "w+");
fwrite($open, $value); // variable is not restated, bug fixed.
$close = fclose($open);
echo $value;
?>

Demo

Note: This script works perfectly fine for low traffic website. As it is using simple text file as a counter there are lot of restrictions. High traffic website must use a Database like MySQL to increment the counter. Check Graphical Hit Counter using PHP for more details on using database instead of text file.