Automated Scripts?

shadow13

Is there anyway to have automated scripts run on your sever using PHP? For example, could you have a script run at midnight every day that would run through your database and reset certain fields?

Thanks for your time and any help given.

-- Shadow13

stolzyboy

if you are on a *nix box, you can look into doing a cron job, there are different ways of doing it, depending on if you have the CGI version of PHP or the Apache module

richblend

really good introduction to cron jobs here:

http://www.webmasters-central.com/t/cron.shtml

stolzyboy

keep in mind the above example won't work if you have apache installed as an apache module, you can't simply run a cron job on a .php page this way with the module, you need either to have lynx(text-only browser) installed on the machine and call the lynx program to run the .php page with cron, or use wget(a program on most linux machines) to accomplish the same as the lynx way

guytoon

Even if the apache module is installed, you can use a cron table with wget command.
Just set a delete option after. It's a kind of cheat but that works !
here a kind of command to set in your cron :

01 00 * wget --delete-after http://www.yousite.com/yourscript.php

stolzyboy

i know i was stating that you couldn't use the tutorial you showed with simple running cron w/o lynx or wget with a simple .php page and apache module