how can php do an action at a predefined time?

[j0sh]

hello.

i wanna code something like an online scheduler in php. i want a feature that sends me an email 10 mins before the schedule task has to be done. now can php do something like doing an action at a predefined time? isn't it only able to do actions at the same time when someone runs the .php document?

thx for help.

j0sh

[stolzyboy]

you can use a cron job to run a php script that then checks for the time and then sends the email if need be, do a google search on "run php page with cron job" and there a quite a few tuts out there to help you out

[j0sh]

ok thx to you i'll try it! 🙂

[j0sh]

hrm it seems you need unix for this?!
isn't there any other way? my script should be able to run on every php server, isn't there such a way?

[stolzyboy]

ah, yes you do, i didn't know you were not on *nix

you can create a vb app that can run the php page, that you can run with the task scheduler

or include that php page in a fairly often accessed page //not likely if you need it within 10 minutes though

[j0sh]

my script should be able to run on every php server, isn't there such a way?

i can't run a vb app on every server, right? 😉 😕

[stolzyboy]

a vb app is an executable that you write with visual basic

and yes your php script should run on any server that is running php, but the problem is you can't run task scheduler on windows to run a php script, you need to run something that calls the php script

alternatively, if you have php installed as a cgi, you can call the php script via command line, simply run a phpinfo() page to see if you have the cgi version or the apache version running