Wordpress popular posts without using plugins

Question

I'm working on a site trying to get a popular posts section on it. I've tried plugins but they require wp_head() and that destroys the jCarousel that I have on the site. I've implemented the code to getPostViews with the following in functions.php:

function getPostViews($postID){
    $count_key = 'post_views_count';
    $count = get_post_meta($postID, $count_key, true);
    if($count==''){
        delete_post_meta($postID, $count_key);
        add_post_meta($postID, $count_key, '0');
        return "0 View";
    }
    return $count.' Views';
}

function setPostViews($postID) {
    $count_key = 'post_views_count';
    $count = get_post_meta($postID, $count_key, true);
    if($count==''){
        $count = 0;
        delete_post_meta($postID, $count_key);
        add_post_meta($postID, $count_key, '0');
    }
    else{
        $count++;
        update_post_meta($postID, $count_key, $count);
    }
}

However when I insert the following in a loop to display it, my site goes down telling me that I need to install wordpress again. When I go through with the installation, I get a list of database errors. However, if I go back to it some time later in the day with the code removed, the site works again.

<? query_posts('meta_key=post_views_count&orderby=meta_value_num&order=DESC'); ?>

How can I get the popular posts to work using this? Or is there another way I should be looking at to get popular posts to work? Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

Pleace this in functions.php:

function getPostViews($postID){
    $count_key = 'post_views_count';
    $count = get_post_meta($postID, $count_key, true);
    if($count==''){
        delete_post_meta($postID, $count_key);
        add_post_meta($postID, $count_key, '0');
        return "0 View";
    }
    return $count.' Views';
}
function setPostViews($postID) {
    $count_key = 'post_views_count';
    $count = get_post_meta($postID, $count_key, true);
    if($count==''){
        $count = 0;
        delete_post_meta($postID, $count_key);
        add_post_meta($postID, $count_key, '0');
    }
    else{
        $count++;
        update_post_meta($postID, $count_key, $count);
    }
}

Next, place this where you'd like to return the post list w/views:

<ul>
    <?php
    global $post;
    $args = array( 'numberposts' => 5, 'offset'=> 1, 'category' => 1 );
    $myposts = get_posts( $args );
    foreach( $myposts as $post ) :  setup_postdata($post); ?>
    <li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
    <li><?php setPostViews(get_the_ID()); echo getPostViews(get_the_ID());; ?></li>
    <?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>