Delayed Emails

moracom

Hi,
I have this database where I enter articles via a web form. What I want it to happen is that whenever I enter a new article via my web form once it is posted on the database I would like it to send out an email automatically to my Elite Friends on my database then an hour later send out an email to the rest of my database users. How can I accomplish this?
Thanks for you help!

devinemke

if you haven't already, add a date/time filed to your table. send the inital email (using [man]mail[/man]) as part of the article INSERT script. then run a cronjob (UNIX) or Windows Task Schedule script every 5 minutes that pulls all articles inserted 1 hour ago and sends out the addtional emails.

moracom

Thanks Divinemke!
I do have a date/time field and I got the initial email working but for the hour delayed email with cronjob I have no idea how to set that up. I'm hosting on a unix server. If you could help me with the cronjob part I would greatly appreciate it.

devinemke

perhaps your crontab would look something like:

0 * * * * /path/to/php /path/to/script.php >/path/to/output.log 2>/path/to/errors.err

then in script.php run a query like:

SELECT * FROM articles WHERE DATE_SUB(CURDATE(), INTERVAL 1 HOURS) <= datetime

loop thru the results to build your email list.