I'm trying to gather the most popular links on my database, so i need to write to a file whenever a link is clicked.

I thought this might work, but it leaves the page loading on ff and completely crashes on opera.

<script type="text/javascript">
function execute_php() { document.write("<?php 

$datafilearray = file("file.php");

$fd = fopen ("file.php", "w");

$all = count($datafilearray)+1;

for($i = 0; $i < $all; $i++) {
    fwrite ($fd, $datafilearray[$i]);
}

fwrite ($fd, "test\n");

fclose($fd);

 ?>") }
</script>

<a href="http://www.google.com" onclick="javascript:execute_php();" target="_blank">Link</a>

Thanks, Peter

You cannot operate that way.

PHP being a server side language, and javascript a client side, you will just write php code in the local user browser, but it won't get interpreted.

To do what you are trying to do, you must:

1) create a page on your server that will get the datas you need (either passed from a form, or fetched from a db)
2) Create a link to that page, giving the necessary parameters in the call

When the user will land on the page, the server will create the file via PHP.
From there, you can do everything you want with your file.
Get it via FTP, or create another link that will allow the user to download it via his browser, store it as backup...
It's up to you.

Edit:
The page being still loading is because when you use javascript to write in a newly created window, you need to do a document.close(); at the end of your script to explicitly tell the browser that you have finished writing in it.
When doing document.write in a physically existing page, there is no need for it, as the browser already have closed it. You are adding more content, not creating it from scratch.

ok then. Thanks

I just came up with this, it doesn't stop search engines from skipping the link but it still redirects to the writing script:

<a href="link.html" target="_blank" onclick="window.location = 'write_to_datafile.php?link=link.com'">link</a>

<?php
$datafilearray = file("links_visited.php");

$fd = fopen ("links_visited.php", "w");

$all = count($datafilearray)+1;

for($i = 0; $i < $all; $i++) {
    fwrite ($fd, $datafilearray[$i]);
}

fwrite ($fd, "".$_GET['link']."\n");

fclose($fd);

header("location: $HTTP_REFERER");
?>

Yes, the rule is:

The onclick is executed before the href.
If there is javascript which return "false", then the href is not followed.
Otherwise, the href is followed after the onclick execution.

I personnaly used this on a link exchange page, to record the outgoing click without breaking the browsing via an intermediate page.
I send an AJAX request with he onclick to record the link out.

Oh, so i need to move the onclick? Like:

<a onclick="window.location = 'write_to_datafile.php?link=link.com'"
href="link.html" target="_blank">link</a>

The order of the onclick and href have no importance.
You can put them in any order you want.

Both of your syntaxes are valid.

Oh you mean the javascript is executed before..yeh

yep. It's always the onclick before the href, no matter the order they are written.

HAHAHA HA! HAHA!. ha. bargain

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