.com.unity Forums - Multiplayer Game statistics PHP script

Here are the README's contents:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>============
INSTALLATION
============

What is this all about?

This is the ReadMe for a script which provides game statistics for a server
of a Dominions multiplayer game: who is playing, who has already played his
turn, and how much time is left till the next turn begins.

What do I need to use it? Are there any requirements?

PHP 4 or 5 and a webserver which supports PHP. You must be able to use
the PHP executable from the command line aswell as from the web server.
You can get PHP at http://www.php.net/ if you already have a webserver,
otherwise I'd suggest using http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
You'll have to make sure that this stuff is set up correctly by yourself.

How do I set up a turn statistics page for my Dominions 3 multi player game?

First, place the stats.php and the other files in your web directory. This
script does all the work. Second, create a configuration file for your game.
This is done from the command line. Navigate to the directory with the
stats.php. Then call "php stats.php <DIRNAME>" where <DIRNAME> represents
the directory name of your savegame directory for the multiplayer game.
For example: 'php stats.php "~/dominions3/savedgames/MyGame"' or
'php stats.php "C:\Programs\dominions3\savedgames\MyGame"'. If the script
finds a valid Dominions savegame directory, it will then create a
configuration file for this game. This would be named "dom3_MyGame.inc.php".
If you now access the stats.php by your webserver you should see the game.

Can I use the script for more than one game at a time?

You can have multiple configurations, one for each MP game that you are
hosting, in the same directory as your stats.php file is and the script will
be able to manage them all simultaneously. Actually, I'd even encourage it,
instead of using several copies of the stats.php for a few different games.

==================
GAME CONFIGURATION
==================

What can I do with the configuration files?

Open the configuration file with a text editor. You can assign a couple of
options concerning your game. There is a short description about them in
the configuration file, too. Here is a more detailed description about them:

- The $dir variable is a reference to your MP game directory. This should be
correct. Unless you move the game directory, you won't have to change it.

- The $hostinterval tells the script how long your server waits for incoming
turns from the players before it hosts automatically. If you have set a
host interval, you can specify it here. Possible values are, for example:
"15 minutes", "6 hours", "1 day" or "2 days" - or in short, anything that
can be expressed like this. If you have not set a host interval then you
should leave this option untouched and assign the empty string to it: ""

- The $showaiplayers variable is a switch that controls if nations not under
control of a human player, i.e. those that the AI was given control of and
those that started under AI control, are included in the statistics or not.
If this variable is set to 0, these nations won't be shown in the turn list
anymore. If set to 1, they show up as "controlled by AI" in the statistics.
The script can't differentiate between players that have lost the game and
those where the controls have been given over to the AI, unless you use the
--scoredump option for your game, see the next paragraph. If you don't, the
script will take either as that nation being controlled by the AI. In any
case, those nation don't have to submit their turns anymore. The script
can't detect which nations have been played by the AI from the start, too.
You'd have to add these nations manually. More about this shortly, below.

- The $showdefeated variable is a switch that controls if nations which lost
the game, i.e. are nowhere present on the map anymore, are included in the
statistics or not. To detect this, it is required that you host your game
with the --scoredump option. If $showdefeated is set to 0, those nations
won't be shown in the turn list anymore. If set to 1, they will show up as
"lost the game" in the statistics. This variable has no effect if you don't
have a scores.html in the game folder, generated by the --scoredump option.

- The $serveraddress variable, if set, shows the hostname/ip and port of
your game server and even displays the client parameters for the Dominions
executable to directly connect to your server on start, if you move your
mouse over the address. If you use the Microsoft Internet Explorer, it will
automatically copy this to your clipboard, too. Set it to "<host>:<port>"
or to "" if you don't want this information to be displayed at all.

- The $players variable assigns the names of the players to the nations that
they are playing. The order in which the players appear in the statistics
is determined by the order in which they appear in the array. It also tells
the script which nations are present in the game. Most of the nations can
be detected by the script upon creating the configuration file, but not all
of them: Those that started as AI won't get detected at all. If there is a
nation missing, you have to add it yourself. For the nation keys, look at
the end of the stats.php file. There is a $nations array which lists the
keys and the nations that they are representing. Notice that some nations
appear multiple times, since their key depends on the age in which the
game is set. Add the nations that are missing so that the entry looks like
the others that are already present. Don't forget the comma at the end.

===============
TROUBLESHOOTING
===============

When I try to access the script I only see a blank page!

Maybe you are getting PHP errors but don't see them because your error level
is not high enough. Put "error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE);" directly after
the "<?php" line at the top into your stats.php and access the page again.

When I try to access the script I get a download dialog / see the source code!

Your webserver has not been properly configured to support PHP. Fix it.

I get PHP errors when I try to use the script!

Please make sure that you are using PHP version 4 or 5 by calling "php -v".
If the error is in one of your configuration files, try fixing it with the
aid of the error message (it should tell you in which line the problem is),
or delete the configuration file and redo it from scratch.

I restarted the server and the time counter has been reset, but the script
doesn't recognize this. How do I reset the time counter for the script, too?

On Linux: "touch ftherlnd" in the savegame directory. On Windows, you prolly
would have to copy the "ftherlnd" file in another directory and then copy it
back to the game directory, overwriting the original file by this.

The script doesn't display all of the players that are in my game!

Please read the information about configuring the $players variable, above.

Players show up as "controlled by AI", even though they're out of the game!

That's true, as you can read in the information regarding the $showaiplayers
variable. You'll have to remove those players by hand from the players list
or use the --scoredump option to detect defeated players, see the info for
the $showdefeated variable. Another workaround would be to rename the names
by hand if you want to keep them: You could add a "(defeated)" behind it, or
strike out their names by using HTML tags: "<strike>Playername</strike>".

When switching styles it shows "Loading new stylesheet" and nothing happens!

The stylesheets are on external servers and must be loaded by your browser
first. During this time the loading dialog shows up. If some of the external
servers are inaccessible, then this loading process might not finish at all.
Try the next style and maybe reload the page, or reset to the default one.

The "Loading new stylesheet" message vanished, but the page looks quite bleak!

Some of the stylesheets make heavy use of images. Those images have to get
loaded after the stylesheet, and that might take a while. Wait some time for
the images to load, if nothing happens use the next stylesheet and reload.

While switching through the styles my browser gives me some Javascript error!

Are you using the Microsoft Internet Explorer? That browser only supports up
to 32 style sheets. The script tries to circumvent that by reloading the
page after 30 style sheets have been loaded, but if you switch through the
styles too fast, then it might be possible that this workaround fails. Try
reloading the page manually or get a better browser, like Mozilla Firefox...

=====================
FURTHER MODIFICATIONS
=====================

Can I add things like email addresses to the player names? Or avatar images?

You can use full HTML for the player names. You could for example set it to
something like this: "<a href='mailto:someone@there.com'>Player Name</a>".
Make sure that you escape quotation marks (use \" instead of "), though.

Can I change the layout of the game statistics tables?

It should be pretty straight-forward if you know how to use CSS (Cascading
Style Sheets). There is one sample stylesheet being distributed with the
stats.php file. I got the style "Revolucao etc" from the CSS Table Gallery
at http://icant.co.uk/csstablegallery/ and just fixed some display problems.
Have a look at the other styles, then you should be able to do your own one.

Some of the style sheets look weird in my browser. How can I fix them?

If you know how to fix the styles, then you can add a fix to your stats.php
file. Look at it, I already added a fix for the "Matrix?" style in there.
You should add a new style element and put the rules that fix the display in
there. The title has to be the same as the title of the stylesheet you want
to fix, prepended by "(fix) ". If you find a new and working fix for one of
the styles from the list, then please tell me. My contact info is below.

Can I disable the style sheet switcher ?

I used to have a script named "stats-fixed.php" around which didn't use any
other styles and was missing the code for the style switcher. However, since
it didn't see any use by others, I discountinued it for sake of simplicity.

Can I have my turn status displayed for all games that I am participating in?

You could create your own page which uses frames or iframes to display the
status from multiple games in one window. The stats script sets HTML anchor
tags for each nation: the statistics for nation Ulm can be accessed by
adding an "#Ulm" to the URL, for example. If you set up your frames/iframes
correctly, then you should be able to only display the one column on a page
which is relevant for your nation and crop stuff that doesn't interest you.

=======
CONTACT
=======

I have an idea for a new feature, could you add it to the script?

You have the source code, so you can implement it yourself. If you come up
with something good or if you think that others would really benefit alot
from something, then you could drop by the Shrapnel forums and write about
it in the thread for this script or send me a forum PM.

I have a question and read through all this, but it hasn't been answered yet.

See above: Post it in the thread on Shrapnel forums, or write me an email.

Your script rocks! I want to have your babies!

I'm pleased to hear it. If you want to tell me about it, feel free to do so.</pre><hr />