php page timer

[dragongamer]

does anyone know of a script that tells you how long you have been on a page for, i have tried cookies but with know use if any one knows an script or a site or tut?

[Anyango]

javascript is your best bet, i question php's ability to do that

[dragongamer]

i have got one but is urring the +time+ in to soing i can place in the data base? is there any way i can do it?

thanks

[edited by: coopster at 7:17 pm (utc) on April 10, 2006]
[edit reason] removed url [/edit]

[coopster]

Using PHP you will have to first establish the start time. You are right, you will have to somehow store that start time either in a cookie, a hidden form field, pass it in the query string, a session, etc. Next, when the user returns to your site you would need to grab the time again and subtract the two to get the duration. Where did your first effort fail?

[dragongamer]

itryed using useing cookies were it would store the time then at the end it would read it and subtrat it from the real time, but i have no real exaple fo this when i do do it just genrateds as 0.

[coopster]

Must be something wrong in your date calculation then I would assume. Either that or the cookie is not being set and read properly. I would start by dumping the $_COOKIE data to the browser to see if the date is coming in to your script as you expect, same format, etc.

Then, test your *current* date/time retrieval process for the same.

Finally, check your substraction. If you can show the two values (begin time and end time) plus your equation perhaps we can help figure out why it always comes back as zero.