Writing a blank file?

WebmasterJoe

I have a script that I use along side a cronjob to update my site daily by creating a copy of a dynamic file on my site. The script works fine for several days in a row, and then for no apparent reason, the script will write a blank file instead of copying the dynamic file.

Here's my script:

<?php

ob_start(); 
passthru("/usr/bin/wget -q 'http://www.mysite.com/index.php' -O - 2>&1");
$html = ob_get_contents(); 
ob_end_clean(); 
// write output to file       

$fp = fopen("index.html", "w"); 
fwrite($fp, $html); 
fclose($fp);

?>

I have several other scripts like this one on the site, and they all stop and start working at the same time. Anybody have a clue as to why the script would be writing a blank file instead of retrieving the contents of the other file?

tsinka

Hi,

what happens if you execute that command manually in a shell? Do you get any output ?

Thomas

WebmasterJoe

I just ran "usr/bin/wget -q 'http://www.mysite.com/index.php' -O - 2>&1" through shell and got the proper output. (but the script that I posted still doesn't work).

feldon23

Instead of a cron job, why not make the index.php script check the timestamp of the server. If it's between 0:00 and 02:00 then check the timestamp of index.php and if it is over 23 hours old, redirect the script to another script that silently replaces index.php and then redirects back to index.php after waiting a few seconds.

As long as at least one person visits your site between midnight and 2am, your index.php will be up-to-date without putting a significant load on your server since it's only checking the date of the file during off-peak hours.

WebmasterJoe

Feldon, I would use your method except that the cron job isn't the problem. If I run the script that I posted to the board myself, it has the same results that I get from the cron job.

Anyone know why the script is sometimes generating blank pages and how to fix this?

tsinka

Please post the index.php script.

Does that problem occur at certain times or coincidentally.

Thomas

HalfaBee

Why are you doing this via a shell script?
do

$html = file_get_contents( 'http://www.mysite.com/index.php' );

You are probably getting blank pages due to slow connection times or something.

Just check that $html has content and loop until it does.

HalfaBee

feldon23

Yes, the loop is the key. Repeat until $html contains the site. I'd sleep(500) between attempts so you aren't trying to refresh 1,000 times a second.

And if all you want is to write an HTML version of a PHP script's output, then use what Halfabee suggested.