proactive scripts in PHP - is it possible?

[davidklonski]

Hello

I know that PHP acts on a client request. That is the code only runs as a response.
I was wondering whether it is possible to have a PHP script which can run proactively in the server without being triggered by a client request.

Examples:
A scheduler could send mails every hour...
database cleanup could run every hour...

does anyone know if it is possible, or do I need some other server-side technology for that?

thanks

[mmilano]

sure it is. on *nix, if you have the php inturpriter installed, then you can execute scripts like this:

# php some_script.php

same thing on windows .. go to the directory that you have php installed in, and type:

 php c:\path\to\some_script.php

well these obviously aren't scheduled since we are executing them from the command line, but you can just as easily use 'cron' on *nix , or scheduled tastks ( i think ) on windows.