Questions about the statistics system

[anarres]

Hi all! I'm getting ready to start my GSoC project on Usage and Business Statistics, and I'm just starting to realize how much stuff I don't know! I hope this is the right place to post some questions about the statistics system:

1. How can I use the stats system modules in a perl script? I would like to write a simple script like this as a way of learning about how the stats system works:

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use DW::StatStore;
use DW::StatData;
use DW::StatData::AccountsByType;

my $accounts_by_type = DW::StatData::AccountsByType->load_latest( DW::StatStore->get( "accounts" ) );

# MORE CODE...

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

but if I do this within my Dreamhack perl complains that it can't find the modules I asked it to use (even though exactly the same code works fine within /stats/site.bml!) I've tried adding an absolute path to the modules, but it turns out that these depend on a bunch of LJ modules which I can't find.

2. How can I get my Dreamhack to display /admin/stats.bml? (This is only displayed to users with admin priviledges).

3. What are 'crumbs'? I've seen this word in a couple of places, and I've no idea what it is.

4. Just to check, is it the case that if I'm editing a BML page, I should convert it to Template Toolkit?

5. /stats.bml uses the old legacy stats system - is it going to be replaced, or left as it is? If it's going to stay, should I add graphs to it (i.e. display the info on this page in graph form - apart from Age Distribution, which already has a graph)?.

Comments

[kareila]

1. A page run in web context inherits the LJ environment from the web server. For a standalone script, you need something like this at the head of the file:

require "$ENV{'LJHOME'}/cgi-bin/ljlib.pl";

(I copied that from one of the scripts in /bin)

2. You should be able to grant yourself admin privileges on your dev box by visiting the /admin page and looking at the options available.

3. I've never used crumbs, but my understanding is that LJ implemented them to track how users moved between different areas of the site. I don't know if DW is tracking them or not.

4. You don't have to, but in general, we are moving in that direction, so conversion would be a good thing. (I personally don't understand TT yet.)

5. I think that's a question for pauamma, but you can see the work that's been done so far in bug 124.

Hope this helps!

[yvi]

3. Dreamwidth doesn't use crumbs, so no need to worry about them.

[cesy]

I can't answer your questions, but yay for statistics!