make $variable to be looped with interval

sneeze

Anyone with any ideas on how to make $variable to be looped infinit with a 20 second interval?
I assume i have to use 'sleep()' but i'm not sure how to code it properly.

thnx in advance

DigitalExpl0it

this might be your answer

<?
$a = 1;
while ( $a <= 20 ) {
  $sum += $a;
  echo "test<br>";
  $a++;
}
?>

above will only do a loop of 20

to do a loop on and on and on.. to crash your system this isit

$b = 1; 
while( $b < 20 ) { 
$a++; 
}

http://cs-people.bu.edu/smonica/php/php7.php

sneeze

Is there really a chance of crashing the system if the loop has an interval of 20 seconds?
Should i use 'refresh' timer instead then?
The variable im about to loop is a ping to my IP that
displays wether im online or not. What im after, in general, is
something that updates, pings me again, so a user will know
when i go offline/get online while he/she is surfing my site.

Is there a better way of doing this other than using 'ping'?
If so, PLEASE share it with me 😉

DigitalExpl0it

maybe just do a loop for a certain amount

like 40 pings (40 loops)

<?
$a = 1;
while ( $a <= 40 ) {
  $sum += $a;
  echo "test<br>";
  $a++;
}
?>

cause doing it more than really 10 sounds like your trying to create a ping flooder

humm having a script ping yourself will put alot of stress on the server also when you get heavy load, this is not the best way.

Id just create a login system and have the login system set you set ONLINE in a database then when you logoff have it set to OFFLINE.

Then just right a script were if the user just closes the browser have it change it to offline after a certain time

rheroux

Perhaps sessions might be your answer? Create a system that displays a footer with something like:


if(isset($_SESSION['username']))
{
echo $_SESSION['username'] . "is online.";
}
else if (!isset($_SESSION['username']))
{
echo "Blah is not online."
}

There's obviously more to it than that, like registering your session variables, and sticking session_start() at the top of every page, but that's the basic premise.

devinemke

$timestamp = time ();
while (time () - $timestamp < 20)
{
// do something for 20 seconds
}

sneeze

Hmm... its starting to fall in place now. I'm just gonna reprase myself:
this is what i want:
ping my ip once every 20'th second.

not this:
ping my ip for 20 seconds.

that should clear out the issue about this script being a flooder

devinemke

perhaps a cronjob would be best for this?

sneeze

now im confused..
You mean setting a crontab?

devinemke

sure, this is extactly what cronjobs are for, running something at a specific time interval. If you are running apache on a *nix box you could put something like this in /etc/crontab:

0 * * * * /usr/local/bin/prog >/www/path/to/log.txt 2>/www/path/to/error.err

this would run /usr/local/bin/prog every minute and spool the output to /www/path/to/log.txt and the errors to /www/path/to/error.err

replace prog with whatever program or shell script you want

sneeze

Thanks alot!

That will surely do the trick