Tracking Quiz Results with URL, No Database Allowed!

Question

I need to create a 10 page quiz for a mobile browser. It is only a mobile webpage, so no considerations need to be taken for other browsers.

Here's the problem I'm having: I can't use JavaScript, because not every mobile browser supports it. I'm not very skilled in other languages, but I thought perhaps something could be done in PHP as it is server-side.

If my first URL is domain and I enter the correct quiz answer, the URL to the next page could be domain/?p=1. The URL doesn't need to do anything but hold a count of the number of correct results.

As for the actual code, I was thinking it could be included in the HTML itself, as I'm not very concerned about people viewing the source on their mobile phones.

Is it possible to write a line of code that increments the 'p=' attribute in the URL by one when clicked and only attach it to the correct answers?

Here's an image of what I mean: http://i.imgur.com/HbJ5U.jpg

Answer 1

And, what's to stop me from manually incrementing the "correct answer" counter in my address bar?

Do you not want to use a database because you don't have one available to you in your hosting, or because you don't know how?

I'm not a fan of the idea, but you can get the number of "correct answers" with the following code.

<?php 
    /* Gets current correct answer Count */ 
    $answer_count = $_GET["p"]; 

    /* checks to see if the submitted answer is the same as the correct answer */
    if ($_POST["submitted-answer"] == "correct-answer") {
        $answer_count++;
    }
?>

Now, you just add the modified answer count to the link to the next question.

<a href="link-to-next-question.php/?p=<?php echo $answer_count; ?>">Next Question</a>

If this is "just for fun" I don't see why you couldn't do it like this. It's definitely a simple way to solve the problem.

Answer 2

The standard way to do this is to store things in hidden form variables. Of course, if there is anything riding on this, that's a terrible way to do it, because it's really easy for the end user to put his own values in those hidden form values.

Answer 3

Aren't file-based sessions the obvious answer here?