PDF file counter

[Thomas Dowling]

-----Original Message-----
From: Angus Waddell <gus at asbestos.lib.rmit.edu.au>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Thursday, November 13, 1997 11:05 PM
Subject: PDF file counter


>
>Hi all-
>
>I have had a request from one of our reserve librarians to find out how
>we can monitor the use of our web pages without making the counter
>visible. We specifically would want to monitor the number of times a
>certain link on a page is used, as we make our exam papers available in
>pdf format. Is this at all possible? Any info would be greatly
>appreciated. Thanks for your time.
>


Odds are very good that you're already monitoring this.

RMIT seems to be using the CERN httpd server.  I am not really familiar with
CERN's log structure, but I do know that it maintains access logs.  Ask your
webmaster where they are; what you seem to be looking for (the number of
times a specific PDF file has been retrieved) is as easy to get as "grep -c
filename.pdf access_log_file"*.  'Course you can get all fancy and install
full blown log analysis tools, but that isn't strictly necessary for such a
specific purpose.

This assumes that the PDF files whose access you're counting reside on a
server you control.  If not, you probably need to contact the site where
they live and ask about getting access log statistics.

(*Okay, okay, you might want to do:
    grep -c 'GET /fullpath/to/filename.pdf.* 200 *'
This is for an NCSA common log format and it may need some tweaking for
CERN's log format.)

Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu