Feature Request (logging with fopen blocked)

[glidem]

Like a few other people here, I have problems with the logging system. It is no fault of your software but rather the host we use not allowing certain ports like fopen etc.

Could you please consider having an option to store log files on other specified servers seperate to that of the main search site? I am not sure if this is possible, but the logging feature is quite an important one, and a work around would be appreciated.

If not maybe using MySQL tables for logging would work as well for those using php?

Great search engine by the way, I have made use of pretty much all the features from the pro version and it will be released on my site soon.

I can't recommend this search engine enough!

[David]

There is no easy technical solution to this.

...the host we use not allowing certain ports like fopen

fopen is not a 'port'. It is a function that is part of the PHP language.

Writing to a remote machine is generally much harder to set up than writing to a local machine (which is what the logging function is doing at the moment). Imagine if you had a machine that was on the internet but had open access for anyone to write files to it from anyplace.

mySQL also isn't a great solution. If you are with a hosting company that blocks key functions in PHP then you are probably on a low end hosting package. And mySQL is generally not available on the low end packages. mySQL is also not available in general for Windows servers and for people using the ASP option in Zoom. You also need to remember that we need to get the data back out of mySQL and into a graph to be of much use. Getting data into SQL is only half the problem.

So any solution in mySQL will only benefit a tiny minority of people, but be a lot of effort to develop, document & maintain.

A better solution would be to do a HTML post to a remote script everytime a search is done. It would be a more general solution but performance wouldn't be so good. You would still need full PHP access on the remote machine, which of course largely defeats the purpose of the solution, becuase you could get put the entire search function on the remote machine instead.

It isn't worth us spending several days developing a poorly performing solution, for just a couple of people, to work around a problem that is better solved by other means (e.g. changing to a real hosting company, or having the search function remote).

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David