Form Tracking - what's it doing?

[Peekay]

I exported a database recently and came across the 'phpwcms_formtracking' table.

It was quite large. What exactly is this recording?

-- Edit --

OK, I can see from the server log it's recording requests for the contact form. There are in some cases several concurrent requests. Is this triggered on any request, or just when a form is actually submitted?.

Also, if it's just recording requests, can it be disabled?

Thx

[flip-flop]

I don´t know your version, but in conf.inc.php and in form you can disabled this tracking.

Code: Select all

$phpwcms['form_tracking']     = 1; //make a db entry for each form

[Peekay]

Code: Select all

$phpwcms['form_tracking']     = 1;

Many thx flip-flop. Didn't spot that.

If this could be read by a module to do some stats it would be great, provided the records are based on form submissions and not just hits.

[flip-flop]

In newer cms versions there is the possibility to retrieve the user movements and results in the CP form.

[Oliver Georgi]

That kind of form tracking has nothing to do with storing form results in database. It is a totally different db table. This is one part to avoid spamming via robots.

You can disable formtracking for each form CP too - there is a related checkbox.

[phalancs]

But what is formtracking? How could it possibly prevent spam? What is it for? I still don't get it.

[Oliver Georgi]

It stores information about form senders, when, time, duration of last access and so on. Based on this phpwcms rejects repeating requests.

Remember functions like "contacts us" with parallel sending of confirmation to sender. Spam robots can use such kind of forms to spam via message textarea using confirmation emails. But when you can send a single time per queue only it is not of interest because time is money here. And spam does have an effect only when sending to many more than just a single recipient.