Visit counter, with cookies not incrementing

Question

I needed to have a counter on my page that would increment each time the website is visited, pretty simple huh, but...

I have run into a problem, for some reason my page counter doesn't increment at all even though the code seems to be correct.

<?php
if (!isset($_COOKIE["visitCount"])) {
    setcookie("visitCount", 1);
} else {
    $_COOKIE["visitCount"]++;
}

echo $_COOKIE["visitCount"];

It always stays at 2, no matter how many times i refresh the page, help would be greatly appreciated.

Do you want to count the page visits or the number of visits per user? — Hannoun Yassir, Nov 03 '13 at 13:53
I just want the cookie visitCount to increment by 1 each time the page is loaded — user2209644, Nov 03 '13 at 13:56
Exactly this has been asked not too long ago. But more important is that you understand how to set the error reporting for logging: To the highest level and in php.ini. See as well: [How to get useful error messages in PHP?](http://stackoverflow.com/a/14504459/367456) — hakre, Nov 03 '13 at 14:11

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

3

You need to set the variable before you can access it for the first time.

So you need to set it, before you use it in case it is not yet set.

If set, you also need to sanitize/validate the input:

<?php

$name = "visitCount";

if (!isset($_COOKIE[$name])) {
    $_COOKIE[$name] = 0;
}
$_COOKIE[$name] = 1 + (int) max(0, $_COOKIE[$name]);
$result = setcookie($name, $_COOKIE[$name]);
if (!$result) {
    throw new RuntimeException("Failed to set cookie \"$name\"");
}

To easier spot those errors, enable error reporting for developing:

How to get useful error messages in PHP?

edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

Community

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answered Nov 03 '13 at 13:59

Krish R

22,583
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Thank you, that works like a charm, do you have any idea why my version didn't work? – user2209644 Nov 03 '13 at 14:03
@user2209644 The cookie was not being updated with the incremented value. – Kermit Nov 03 '13 at 14:09
may be, you are increamenting but you are not set that into cookie – Krish R Nov 03 '13 at 14:09
The code had a twisted logic, was not sanitizing input values and didn't check if the cookie had been set. I added the code for that. – hakre Nov 03 '13 at 14:18

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 03 '13 at 13:57

1

try this

setcookie('visitCount', isset($_COOKIE['visitCount']) ? $_COOKIE['visitCount']++ : 1);

answered Nov 03 '13 at 13:57

Nextar

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this too stays at "2", wont go to 3, 4, 5... =/ – user2209644 Nov 03 '13 at 14:00
then try Chinnu R's suggestion, may you have to save the counter in a variable – Nextar Nov 03 '13 at 14:02

Visit counter, with cookies not incrementing

2 Answers2