how to retreive and change data (noob)

I want to make a simple visit-counter for my site. The plan is this:

Make a simple mysql database table containing two variables:
1. IP number
2. number of vists (for each IP)

The program would quite simply use the current users ip (IP) to do this:

if (IP is not in database)
make a new entry with IP number and number of visits = 1
else (IP is already in database)
bump corresponding number of visits by one;

Simple enough!

I just want to verify that I have understood mysql.
Are these the simplest and most suited commands to obtain the following:

// Check if IP is in database:
$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE ip=$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']");
$number=mysql_num_rows($query);
if ($number == 0) echo "IP not in database";


// Bump corresponding IP
$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE ip=$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']");
$row = mysql_fetch_array($query);
$visits = $row['visits'];
$visits++;
$query = mysql_query("UPDATE my_table SET visits='$visits' WHERE ip=$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']");

Code (markup):

I am just an old Cobolsaur (who didn't even know Cobol, but mostly assembler and C). Just let me know if I got the hang of how to use mysql.

I have a feeling I sometimes have used completely unnecessary iterating procedures to scan the database, using mysql-commands in this way is maybe better?

ycc

 

Hi,

Please check this link!
p.p.: and this also. Hope it's clear now and you can do it yourself via single line of code.

Regards

 

Thanks a million koko5. You hit dead center.

UPDATE my_table SET visits=visits+1 WHERE ip=$ip;

Code (markup):

seems to work directly. (without adding "unique") It reduces what I want to do from five lines to one

The conversion between IP-numbers and integer in your second link is exactly what I should have done from the start. (I was just puzzling together some sorting routine for IP-number-strings - not efficient)

I feel highly motivated for rewriting it all. (I just did it yesterday afternoon.)

Blagadaryo vam. (My Russian of childhood (grandma came from there) is lost, but at least I go to Ukraine on holiday next week.)

Thanks a lot, very helpful.