Question

I’m trying to get an effect like the http://www.minecraft.net page where it auto updates sales from a database, I’ve been researching this for two months now and no luck.
I have a php file which finds how many results are in a database and displays them as a number, works fine http://tzeale.com/sandbox/stats/pull.php

What I’m trying to do is get the effect like minecraft.net where it auto updates without refreshing the page. Could anyone guide me on what to do? I don’t know what else to try.

Thanks.

Answer 1

hYou need to use AJAX.

setTimeout, alongside a AJAX call to that pull.php

If you are using jQuery, here is a good example on how to achieve what you want.
Added a simple logic to see if the server is dead, and eventually stop.

var failed = 0; 
var limit_failed = 5;
(function updateSales( waitTime ){
   waitTime = waitTime || 1000; // Set to 1 second by default

   setTimeout(function(){
       $.ajax({
           url: 'pull.php',
           success: function( response ){
               // Update something with your response
                alert ("sales are now at: "+ response);
               updateSales(); // Recursion
           },
           error: function(){           
                // Error handling - not necessary
               // If the request failed more then (limit_failed) times, you might want to stop it from checking after (limit_failed) times, 
               // and in the meanwhile icnrease the wait time, so the server has more time to get back online.
               if( ++failed < limit_failed ){
                   waitTime += 1000;
                   updateSales( waitTime );
               }
           }
       });
   }, waitTime);
})();