php How to make & split array then rebuild with extra text from mysql id

Can you please post the CREATE TABLE statements for the iwia_events and visitor_tracking tables?  Thanks.

1. I would suggest parsing out the ID from the query string and storing it separately. Doing a text search for that is going to be inefficent and likely inaccurate. For example, if you want to search for query_string LIKE '%id=123%', then you'll not only get:

id=123

..but also anything that starts with 1:
id=12345

This can be mitigated somewhat if the id parameter is ALWAYS at the end of the query_string field:

query_string LIKE '%id=123' (no ending wildcard %)

...or if there's ALWAYS another parameter afterwards:

query_string LIKE '%id=123&%' (& "finishes" the number, then we have the rest of the wildcard %)

If you parse out the ID ahead of time, then you can index the field for faster searching and there's no messing with wildcards and text searches (and you can then join as necessary).

2. Your query at the end does a DISTINCT on the IP address, but if you're trying to track unique visitors, it's better to use sessions and store the session ID in the database, and then look for unique combinations of timestamp and session ID.

@Ray Paseur²
visitor_tracking

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `visitor_tracking` (
  `entry_id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `visitor_id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
  `ip_address` varchar(15) NOT NULL,
  `page_name` text,
  `query_string` text,
  `timestamp` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  PRIMARY KEY (`entry_id`),
  KEY `visitor_id` (`visitor_id`,`timestamp`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=42 ;

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iwia_events

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `iwia_events` (
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `event_title` varchar(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `event_location` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
  `lat` float(10,6) NOT NULL,
  `lng` float(10,6) NOT NULL,
  `type` text NOT NULL COMMENT 'used for google map icon',
  `event_price` varchar(20) DEFAULT NULL,
  `event_image` varchar(255) DEFAULT 'http://completelocal.info/images/iwia/default-event-avatar.png',
  `event_url` varchar(200) DEFAULT NULL,
  `event_start` datetime NOT NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  `event_end` datetime NOT NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  `event_text` text,
  `extra_info` text,
  `facebook` enum('0','1') NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `twitter` enum('0','1') NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `active` enum('0','1') NOT NULL DEFAULT '1',
  `categories` text NOT NULL,
  `tags` varchar(359) NOT NULL,
  `date_published` int(10) NOT NULL,
  `author_id` int(15) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=75 ;

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@ gr8gonzo

thanks for the reply.

as for ip versus other tracking methods i was going to use piwik and Ray suggested Google Analytics it was apparent at that time that i need to read up on how to get unique page views and total page hits for a passed to a php script via  a variable page stats - i set out to at least count something for now till i can devote more time to getting better accuracy. with ips i figure i'll get a min number for now.

as for the id= yes i realized that % wildcard would not return correctly as i was testing and didn't get back to this to ask that too

again im very open here
my table for the second one right now hold info like (live example)

INSERT INTO `visitor_tracking` (`entry_id`, `visitor_id`, `ip_address`, `page_name`, `query_string`, `timestamp`) VALUES
(32, 1, '98.28.197.19x', '/single_event_page.php', 'id=5', '2014-01-10 19:18:18'),
(33, 1, '98.28.197.19x', '/single_event_page.php', 'id=2', '2014-01-10 19:31:49'),
(34, 1, '98.28.197.19x', '/single_event_page.php', 'id=73', '2014-01-10 20:12:27'),
(35, 1, '98.28.197.19x', '/single_event_page.php', 'id=72', '2014-01-10 20:25:12'),
(36, 2, '66.220.158.11x', '/single_event_page.php', 'id=72', '2014-01-10 20:50:31'),
(37, 3, '69.77.153.10x', '/single_event_page.php', 'id=72', '2014-01-10 21:07:39'),
(38, 4, '98.28.200.22x', '/single_event_page.php', 'id=2', '2014-01-10 21:34:55'),
(39, 5, '50.179.200.11x', '/single_event_page.php', 'id=72', '2014-01-10 23:08:51'),
(40, 6, '180.76.6.14x', '/single_event_page.php', 'id=28', '2014-01-11 02:32:31'),
(41, 7, '180.76.5.11x', '/single_event_page.php', 'id=20', '2014-01-12 15:06:17');

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im paring my hits for the page name as and example id=5

im very open to any and all suggestions
for reference this was the first question that prompted this post and way of doing this
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Web_Languages-Standards/PHP/Q_28335270.html

and this is the second question on how i derived at what it is now
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Web_Languages-Standards/PHP/Q_28335642.html

i dont know why i can find something so simple and muck it up so badly but anyways this is still eluding me on how to get this all to work.

im now trying to see if i can make a array of the event id's i need from the author_id field search testing for author_id 1 should return 73 and 74 (i can do this in myphpadmin with

select id from iwia_events WHERE author_id= 1

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i made a code block to do just that using mysqli (i keep forgetting mysql is out now)
and im getting an error in my code
Fatal error: Call to undefined method mysqli_stmt::fetch_assoc() in /home/local/public_html/ip_report.php on line 51
line 51 is: (see attached code as line 13)
while ($row = $stmt->fetch_assoc()) {

heres my code im trying to do the first part with (to make an array to check for event ids in this post. as i said im blind here and still not getting how to make this work. hence this post. but im attempting to try and make it work

my code:

function a_id($id, $mysqli){
  $userid = "SELECT id FROM iwia_events WHERE id = ? ";
  if($stmt = $mysqli->prepare($userid)) 
  {
    $stmt->bind_param('i', $id);
    $stmt->execute();
    if(!$stmt->execute()) 
        { 
            echo $stmt->error.' in query: '.$userid; 
        }
    else {
        $author_id_events = array();
        while ($row = $stmt->fetch_assoc()) {
          $author_id_events[] = $row;
        }
        $stmt->close(); 
        return $author_id_events;
    }
    $stmt->close();
  }
}
 
 
 include ("mysqli_ctx.php");
 
 $author_id_events_found =a_id($author_id,$mysqli);

 
 echo "<pre>";
 var_dump($author_id_events_found);
 echo "</pre>";
 

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as you can see im trying to work this out and im still no closer and have not solved this yet

oh btw as per gr8gonzo i changed my code to now be

    $words = array( 'id=5','id=72','id=73' );
    //$words = array( ''); //all
$whereClause = '';
foreach( $words as $word) {
   $whereClause .= ' query_string = "' . $word . '" OR';
}

// Remove last 'OR'
$whereClause = substr($whereClause, 0, -2);

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this no longer relies on wildcards and directly looks for the id=#

im still unsure if this is the right path and im still unsure how to build the $words array from my $author_id_events_found hence this original question but im trying to work it out, so far not able too i keep hitting problems

ok one thing done..still need to look for ids in query_string field
but heres the way to get the event_id from author id

 include ("mysqli_ctx.php");
 
$query = "SELECT id FROM iwia_events WHERE author_id =".$author_id." ORDER by id";
echo "query:  ".$query."<br>";
$result = $mysqli->query($query);

while($row = $result->fetch_array())
{
$rows[] = $row;
}

foreach($rows as $row)
{
$author_id_events_found .=$row['id'].", ";
}

/* free result set */
$result->close();

/* close connection */
$mysqli->close();
 
$author_id_events_found = substr($author_id_events_found, 0, -2); 
 echo "<pre>";
 var_dump($author_id_events_found);
 echo "</pre>";
 
 
echo "event ids ".$author_id_events_found."<br>";
 die();

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this was the solution