PHP Q

[MrPinkPanther]

This should be my last question on PHP. If I have an application which POST's to PHP every 4 seconds is there a way that I can detect when they have stopped POSTing and have hence logged off? So say after 8 seconds they haven't posted anything so have quit the Browser or whatever.

Thanks in advance,
FlyDuo.

[BoyBetterKnow]

This should be my last question on PHP. If I have an application which POST's to PHP every 4 seconds is there a way that I can detect when they have stopped POSTing and have hence logged off? So say after 8 seconds they haven't posted anything so have quit the Browser or whatever.

Thanks in advance,
FlyDuo.

Mr FlyDuo. I remember you saying that Actionscript PWNT php.

I'm trying to think of a good way to do this.

You could run a cron job every 10 seconds to check which users havn't posted in 10 seconds. Or you could do it so the thing that gets posted to, for instance if user A is logged off and user B is still online, the script that user B's browser is posting to could check if user A is still posting, but I wouldn't recommend that.

I'm thinking a cron job really. Depending on your potential user base really.

[Source]

Stop using the word really, it's really annoying.... really. ^_-

I came across this issue a few days ago when I started making my collaborative viewing application (watching videos in a group/listening to audio together) but my circumstances are slightly different as I have a 'lobby' leader whom I use as the host.

Having a lobby leader allows me to use regular calls from his/her browser to check a timestamp of when they last made a post request, if it's higher then 20 seconds then I delete their entry from being in the lobby. Then I use a cron job every 5 minutes to see when lobby leaders have quit, just to clean things up. (Note: This is small scale, so I am not worrying about the extra overheads of using user script calls to check).

Presuming you don't have someone that's meant to be in with them at all times, probably best to run a cron job every 10 / 20 seconds.

[Excellent2]

Do a cronjob, 10 seconds is a bit too much.

[Source]

It may be too much, but he is trying to get it as close to real-time as possible. (I presume).

Plus the resources for running that wouldn't really be noticeable.

[MrPinkPanther]

I know what a cronjob is but I haven't really used them really. I'm just really wondering how to do it really. Could anyone give me any help? It would really help me really.

Basically every user posts his own username to Online.php and I want to say: If(//user hasnt posted in 10 seconds){
//Do something with user
}

[BoyBetterKnow]

Stop using the word really, it's really annoying.... really. ^_-

You really want me to stop using really ey?

I know what a cronjob is but I haven't really used them really. I'm just really wondering how to do it really. Could anyone give me any help? It would really help me really.

Basically every user posts his own username to Online.php and I want to say: If(//user hasnt posted in 10 seconds){
//Do something with user
}

I havn't used a cron job in a few years, but I believe you just put in a little bit of code for it to run, which includes the online.php page, and it runs it.

[MrPinkPanther]

You really want me to stop using really ey?



I havn't used a cron job in a few years, but I believe you just put in a little bit of code for it to run, which includes the online.php page, and it runs it.

I've used cron jobs in the past for my Flash stuff but they've been more of a C&P job, I'm not sure how to create it myself.

[Agnostic Bear]

If you're using mysql, just slap their name into an online table with the time they last refreshed and check with a simple WHERE `time` > '192382' or something.

[BoyBetterKnow]

If you're using mysql, just slap their name into an online table with the time they last refreshed and check with a simple WHERE `time` > '192382' or something.

Yeh. To elaborate on what Jew Bear said, have a table called online and have the fields: userid, time.

Then you will have all your online users in there, and then remove the record if it's not online or whatever. This is opposed to some people who would have the online field in the users table which is not a good idea because the users table will have more to search from.