Creating a referral url

I need to create a referral url for every member of my site, something like this: http://mywebsite.com/ref/user, where user is a unique field in a database table. Please can someone give me a hint on how to go about this? I'll appreciate a dummy code, since I'm new to PHP and CodeIgniter.

I did some digging on the internet and found this code on github:

   

Code:

<?php
      //check for referal links
      function referal()
      {
       $CI =& get_instance();
       $cookie_value_set = $CI->input->cookie('_tm_ref', TRUE) ? $CI->input->cookie('_tm_ref', TRUE) : '';
      if ($CI->input->get('ref', TRUE) AND $cookie_value_set == '') {
        // referred user so set cookie to ref=username
         $cookie = array(
        'name'   => 'ref',
        'value'  => $CI->input->get('ref', TRUE),
        'expire' => '7776000',
      );
        $CI->input->set_cookie($cookie);
        return TRUE;
       }elseif ($cookie_value_set == '') {
         $cookie = array(
        'name'   => 'ref',
        'value'  => 'sso',
        'expire' => '15552000',
      );
        $CI->input->set_cookie($cookie);
        return TRUE;
    
       }elseif ($cookie_value_set != '') {
         //already referred so ignore
        return TRUE;
    
       }else{
          return TRUE;
       }
      }
    //end of hooks file
    ?>

The owner of the gist only mentioned saving the file as referral.php inside the **hook** folder. This is not helping me with what I want to achieve, I don't know how to use the code:
1. How do I pass the **referrer** field to the variable **username** from the **users** table?
2. How do I load the hook file to view (register.php)?
3. How and where do I call the hook file?

So can anybody give me an insight?

ok editing because I misunderstood.

With referral urls you need to know the username beforehand no? I mean what is the use if not.

[Image: https://cimembership.io/assets/cubes/home/img/logo.png]

Or you could generate a "referral code" and assign that to a user. That way, the URL doesn't give away what user it's for, and it still can be tracked against that user.

You would need to use CodeIgniter's _remap() method and catch the referral code through your index($referral) method.

Here is how we did it, but we assigned a profile direct with user id directories this way we could store their
images etc in them.

PHP Code:

/**
 * index()
 * ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 *
 * index - default method called.
 *
 * @access    public
 */
public function index($referrer = null)
{
    //echo $referrer;

    if ( ! empty($referrer))
    {
        $user->query_user_by_url($referrer);
        $data['referral_user_id'] = $user->id;
        $this->session->set_userdata('referral_user_id', $user->id);
    }
    else
    {
        $this->session->set_userdata('referral_user_id', 0);
        $data['referral_user_id'] = 0;    // Direct
    }

    $this->load->view('your_view', $data);
}


/**
 * _remap()
 * ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 *
 * Remaps the URL segments.
 *
 * @param    string
 * @param    array
 */
public function _remap($method, $params = array())
{
    if (method_exists($this, $method))
    {
        return call_user_func_array(array($this, $method), $params);
    }

    show_404();
} 


What did you Try? What did you Get? What did you Expect?

Joined CodeIgniter Community 2009.  ( Skype: insitfx )

Or you could generate a "referral code" and assign that to a user. That way, the URL doesn't give away what user it's for, and it still can be tracked against that user.

Jay please help me with a dummy code. I did mention I'm new to PHP and Code Igniter.

ok editing because I misunderstood.

With referral urls you need to know the username beforehand no? I mean what is the use if not.

Yes, the username will be assigned to users during registration. I'm looking for a way to create a unique url for each user using their username eg. http://mywebsite.com/ref/david08, or something similar.

You would need to use CodeIgniter's _remap() method and catch the referral code through your index($referral) method.

Here is how we did it, but we assigned a profile direct with user id directories this way we could store their
images etc in them.

PHP Code:

/**
 * index()
 * ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 *
 * index - default method called.
 *
 * @access    public
 */
public function index($referrer = null)
{
    //echo $referrer;

    if ( ! empty($referrer))
    {
        $user->query_user_by_url($referrer);
        $data['referral_user_id'] = $user->id;
        $this->session->set_userdata('referral_user_id', $user->id);
    }
    else
    {
        $this->session->set_userdata('referral_user_id', 0);
        $data['referral_user_id'] = 0;    // Direct
    }

    $this->load->view('your_view', $data);
}


/**
 * _remap()
 * ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 *
 * Remaps the URL segments.
 *
 * @param    string
 * @param    array
 */
public function _remap($method, $params = array())
{
    if (method_exists($this, $method))
    {
        return call_user_func_array(array($this, $method), $params);
    }

    show_404();
} 


Thanks InsiteFX, but I'm confused about the argument $referrer passed to the index function. Is it a database field name, and if yes, from which table? Or do i need a model to handle the data retrieval from my 'members' table? Please break the code down for me. Pardon my ignorance.

the username is unique in itself so we could just add some random characters on it:

PHP Code:

$char = substr(str_shuffle(str_repeat("0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz", 5)), 0, 5);
$username .= $char; 


I am currently using the user id, it's simple and unique so why not.

[Image: https://cimembership.io/assets/cubes/home/img/logo.png]

It's the users referral id when they register through your auth system you assign it to them.
You can assign a unique number to it if you want, but then you would need to store that also.

We used a referred_users table that links to the users table.

Code:

-- --------------------------------------------------------

--
-- Table structure for table `referred_users`
--

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `referred_users`;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `referred_users` (
    `id`              BIGINT(20) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    `user_id`         BIGINT(20) UNSIGNED          DEFAULT NULL,
    `referreduser_id` BIGINT(20) UNSIGNED          DEFAULT NULL,
    `added_on`        TIMESTAMP           NULL     DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
    PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE = MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET = `utf8` COLLATE = `utf8_unicode_ci`;

--
-- Dumping data for table `referred_users`
--

-- --------------------------------------------------------

--
-- Table structure for table `users`
--

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `users`;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `users` (
    `id`             BIGINT(20) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    `first_name`     VARCHAR(55)         NOT NULL,
    `last_name`      VARCHAR(55)                  DEFAULT NULL,
    `gender`         VARCHAR(8)                   DEFAULT NULL,
    `activationkey`  VARCHAR(255)                 DEFAULT NULL,
    `password`       VARCHAR(255)        NOT NULL,
    `email_address`  VARCHAR(255)        NOT NULL,
    `group_id`       BIGINT(20) UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT '100',
    `role`           VARCHAR(15)                  DEFAULT NULL,
    `remember_me`    INT(1) UNSIGNED     NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
    `date_added`     TIMESTAMP           NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
    `confirmed`      TINYINT(4) UNSIGNED          DEFAULT '0',
    `banned`         TINYINT(4) UNSIGNED          DEFAULT '0',
    `deleted`        TINYINT(4) UNSIGNED          DEFAULT '0',
    `facebook_id`    VARCHAR(255)                 DEFAULT NULL,
    `token`          VARCHAR(255)                 DEFAULT NULL,
    `timeout`        INT(11) UNSIGNED             DEFAULT '1800',
    `user_url`       VARCHAR(255)        NOT NULL,
    `receive_emails` TINYINT(1) UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
    `read_terms`     TINYINT(1) UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
    `email_referral` TINYINT(4) UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
    PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE = InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET = `utf8` COLLATE = `utf8_unicode_ci`;

--
-- Dumping data for table `users`
--

But you can add to it if need be.

What did you Try? What did you Get? What did you Expect?

Joined CodeIgniter Community 2009.  ( Skype: insitfx )