maintenace scripts

[habbardone]

Hi,
How do I write a php program that operates once every 24 hours and deletes certain records (rows) from a database.

I don't need it to send anything to a browser - just do the jobs on the db once a day ?

Thanks for any pointers
David

[Norman_Graham]

Hi David

The answer is, you can't. You need what's called a Cron Job to run your PHP script, which is very easy to set up on a Linux box.

Windows has a task scheduler, but I've never used it. I don't even know whether it's in any way similar to cron jobs. Windows does however have a management console which you reach by entering 'mmc' in the run dialogue and hitting return. You can write a WSH script and then use the MMC to tell the computer to run the script every time it boots or shuts down. Whether you can tell it to run a PHP script is beyond my knowledge. WSH runs JScript and VB-Script. Apparently you can also download modules to deal with Perl and Python.

If you want to use the MMC, I suggest you do some research - it's not exactly intuitive. However, I'm sure there are loads of tips and tricks on the net.

HTH

Norm

[Thora_Fan]

In response to Norman's post, I would reccommend using the Windows Task Scheduler to run php.exe with your script as a paramater. Something like

C:\PHP\PHP.exe path/to/script.php

should, in theory, work.