PHP to Perl/CGI

[micmac]

Hello to all,
I have somewhat of dilemma. I have created a php script for a client that works fine if executed manually but now he wants it as a cron job.
i don't have any problem creating a cron job, but apparently i can't call my php script, i have to call perl and cgi.
I thought you could call any file under a UNIX server.
Any suggestions on what i should do?

Cheers,
micmac

<?
$current_date = date("Ymd"); //now
$new_current_date = strtotime($current_date); //now-UNIX

$db = mysql_connect("localhost", "", "");
      mysql_select_db("store",$db);

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM pref WHERE expiry_date != ''",$db);	  

while  ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

$catid = $row["CatID"];

$expiry_date = $row['expiry_date'];
$CatID = $row['CatID'];
$listing_position = $row['listing_position'];
$new_expiry_date = strtotime($expiry_date); 

if($new_expiry_date < $new_current_date){
$sql = "UPDATE cat1 SET pref='N' WHERE CatID=$catid";
$sql1 = "UPDATE pref SET listing_position='',expiry_date='' WHERE CatID=$catid";

$sendto = "[e-mail]";
$subject = "Expired Preferential Listing ";   
$message = "ID: $CatID\n\nURL: $listing_position\n\nExpiry Date: $expiry_date"; 
$from = "From: TMD<[e-mail]>";
mail($sendto, $subject, $message, $from);

$new_result = mysql_query($sql);
$result1 = mysql_query($sql1);


}
}

?>

[devinemke]

cron will excute any command you give it (perl, php, shell) but some webservers may require you to place a shebang statement in your php script: #!/usr/local/bin/php and CHMOD 755.
either that or your cron should point to the php executable with your script as a command line argument /usr/local/bin/php /path/to/your/script.php

[jerdo]

The other problem might be that you don't have php command line interface installed. To test simply ssh into your server, change to the directory that your script resides in and try typing "php scriptname". If you get an error about php not being a command then see if you can get the cli installed.