Dynamic number ticker using PHP and Jquery

This is a fascinating little script that helps you display a dynamic JSON feed of numbers that automatically updates on the page by animating up or down to the current number. A great addition as part of a realtime analytical dashboard.

The JS Code

There are three functions in total. The first one ‘format_number’ which works the same as number_format(); in PHP adding the decimal places. the ‘magic_number’ function then takes the current number and the new number and animates between them.

Finally we have the ‘update’ function which retrieves the new data set of numbers (randomly generated in PHP for the demo) via a JSONP feed. At the bottom of the script we’re refreshing the data every 4 seconds. Oh and dont forget to include the jQuery library.

counts = {};

function format_number(text){

return text.replace(/(\d)(?=(\d\d\d)+(?!\d))/g, "$1,");

};

function magic_number(element_name, value) {

var elem = $(element_name);

var current = counts[element_name] || 0;

$({count: current}).animate({count: value}, {

duration: 500,

step: function() {

elem.text(format_number(String(parseInt(this.count))));

}});

counts[element_name] = value;

};

function update() {

var jqxhr = $.getJSON("number.php?jsonp=?", function(data) {

magic_number("#number1", data[0]['n1']);

magic_number("#number2", data[0]['n2']);

});

};

setInterval(update, 4000);

      update();

The PHP

For the example number.php generates random numbers and returns them as a JSON object. You could easily add as many numbers to the feed as you like, even retrieving data from a database, simply add extra values to the array below as shown commented out.

$total_data = array(

array(

'total' => rand(0,99999999),

'twitter' => rand(0,99999999)

// , 'dummy-entry' => $var

),

);

echo $_GET['jsonp'].'('. json_encode($total_data) . ')';

For Demo Click Here

To download files Click Here