story controller used on nsinformer.com

stories.php

<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

// This is the controller for nsinformer.com landing pages.
// I wrote this in 2014. These comments were written a couple years later.
class Stories extends CI_Controller {

	public function index($url)
	{
		$this->load->database();
		$this->load->model('Storymodel');

		// retrieves story
		$data['story'] = $this->Storymodel->retrieve_story($url);

		// check if story was retrieved, return 404 otherwise
		if(isset($data['story']['0']['id'])) {
			// the following logic is used to determine whether or not to track the landing page's hit.
			// it would make sense for this to be a helper function instead
			// ['time'] is a unix timestamp
			$story_age = time() - $data['story']['0']['time'];
			// landing page hits should not be counted if story was generated less than 20 seconds ago
			// now, I would be more inclined to do something more like this...
			/*
			$hit_valid['status'] = true;
			if($story_age <= NEW_STORY) {
				$hit_valid['status'] = false;
				$hit_valid['message'] = 'Story generated less than ' . NEW_STORY . ' seconds ago.';
			}
			*/
			if($story_age <= 20) {
				$hit_suppress = true;
			} else {
				$hit_suppress = false;
			}
			// attempt to retrieve data about whether user has already hit landing page in question
			$hit_identifier = $data['story']['0']['id'];
			// returns an empty string if not in client cookie
			$hit_tracker = $this->session->userdata($hit_identifier);

			// check conditions that would invalid tracking the hit
			if($hit_tracker == '' && $hit_suppress == false) {
				// track the hit
				$this->Storymodel->hit_story($url, $data['story']['0']['hits']);
				// redundantly retrieving story...
				$data['story'] = $this->Storymodel->retrieve_story($url);
				// add hit to codeigniter session, so that a client refreshing the page does not increment
				// the hit counter
				$hit = array(
					$data['story']['0']['id']  => 1
				);
				$this->session->set_userdata($hit);
			};

			// prepare data to pass to view
			$data['title'] = $data['story']['0']['name'];

			// looks like I didn't know how to use ternary logic
			if($data['story']['0']['hits'] == '1') { $data['people'] = 'person'; } else { $data['people'] = 'people'; };

			$data['page_stories'] = 1;

			// build the page. This could and should be DRYer. If the story is a 'new story' (less than 20s old),
			// load a template that provides sharing instuctions. I decided on this approach so that I could direct
			// the user to the URL they would copy and paste after they created a story
			if($story_age <= 20) {
				$this->load->view('templates/header', $data);
				$this->load->view('new-stories');
				$this->load->view('templates/footer');
			} else {
				$this->load->view('templates/header', $data);
				$this->load->view('stories');
				$this->load->view('templates/footer');
			}
		} else {
			$data['title'] = '404';

			$this->load->view('templates/header', $data);
			$this->load->view('fourohfour');
			$this->load->view('templates/footer');
		}
	}
}