continual php execution

[Anon]

Hello,

I have made a mysql database which contains iformation users have submitted about times and dates.
Once a certain date is reached, I want to be able to send out an email to that user.

In order to do this, I need to be constantly checking the database and comparing the timestamp to the current time to see if they match. Is there any possible way I can have a PHP page continually running doing this, whilst still allowing users to access other PHP pages to make forms,etc. ?

Cheers, Jim.

[Anon]

The normal way to do this is set up a cron job that checks at preset time intervals. If you have standalone PHP available, you can just have it directly run the php script. If (as I do) you only have mod_php, it's still easy: just have the cron job call wget or lynx to request the php page from your web server.