Schedule an e-mail Send using DATETIME in MySQL?

jloch

Hi -
I have a need to send an e-mail message to a recipient at a certain time. I'm using mySQL to store a message_body and a recipient_id. Currently, my PHP script selects the recipient and the mail body and sends immediately when pushing SEND.

Q: How can I store a DATETIME in mySQL and have the above process kick off at that time? Can cron call a PHP script?

Thanks for any advice you can offer!!

atlskydiver (jloch)

DigitalExpl0it

you will need to use crontab (in a linux/unix environment)

and then to store the date/time use the date(); function

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php

jloch

I'm learning Linux and PHP at the same time, so my knowledge of cron is basic. But, from what you're telling me, I can write a command to my crontab file that calls a PHP script (in which my code lives that actually sends the email).

I am still a bit unclear as to how cron is going to know the date to send the email. OR, will cron just wake up once every minute and run said PHP script...the PHP script will check the database and look for a send date field. Then, if NOW() is greater than or equal to the send date, then it sends, if not, do nothing?

Let me know if I'm on the right track, or just plain confused/confusing 🙂

atlskydiver (jloch)