Web Counter output displays

Because the output from the counter script is a file consisting of a number, we can include it in a line of text in a document, or read it into a table. We can even change the font size or include it in a hypertext link.
To insert the number of hits on the counter main page into the current document, we do the following:

because we've specified countpage.hits as the output file. We can put this code snippet into tables, links, etc. Here are some examples:

The main counter page has been accessed  times.
The main counter page has been accessed 5302 times.

You are number  to visit this examples page.
You are number 651 to visit this examples page.

A whopping <FONT SIZE=+3><BLINK> <A HREF="cheat.htm"> </A></BLINK></FONT> people have read the cheat page.
A whopping 205 people have read the cheat page.

Here's how to do a table: The following code:

<TABLE BORDER=4 CELLPADDING=3 CELLSPACING=2>
<TR><TH>Page Accessed</TH><TH>Hits</TH></TR>
<TR>
<TD>Simple counter page</TD>
<TD><!--#include file="countpage.hits"--></TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>Examples page</TD>
<TD><!--#include file="example.hits"--></TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>Cheat page</TD>
<TD><!--#include file="cheat.hits"--></TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>WestNet FAQ page</TD>
<TD><!--#include file="westfaq.hits"--></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

Gives the following result:

Page Accessed	Hits
Simple counter page	5302
Examples page	651
Cheat page	205
WestNet FAQ page	12667

If you are going to be checking your output count frequently, and especially if the page displaying the output count isn't going to be frequently visited by the public, you can do a little trick that makes the count update each time you visit the page, by defeating the cacheing mechanism. Keep in mind that this slows down access, so you don't want to do it on all of your pages.
Name the display page, as this one is, with a .sht or .shtml extension. Don't make it executable with the chmod command. The server will interpret it as "parsed HTML" and update the page on each visit.
By not doing this, you may see a cached version from a previous visit when you check your count, resulting in an outdated number.

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