Slow page loads

[kkessler]

Hello All,

Admittedly, I'm a total php noob! I wrote this script to pull the NOAA METAR & TAF information for an airport, run them through a little formatting and display them. The problem is the page is taking about 8 - 10 seconds to load!!

Here is my code - any suggestions are MUCH appreciated!

Thanks in Advance,

--Keith

<?php
@ $pointer = fopen("ftp://weather.noaa.gov/data/observations/metar/stations/KLU$
   if ($pointer) {
     $today = date("Y/m/d");
     while (!feof($pointer)) {
         $NOAA_METAR = fgets($pointer, 4096);
         if (strpos($NOAA_METAR, $today) === !FASLE) {
            $NOAA_METAR = substr($NOAA_METAR, 0, strpos($NOAA_METAR, 'AO2'));
            $METAR = $METAR . $NOAA_METAR;
         }
     }
   fclose($pointer);
   echo "<b>METAR:</b> $METAR";
   }

@ $pointer = fopen("ftp://weather.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/taf/stations/KLUK.TXT$
   if ($pointer) {
     $ctr = 1;
     while (!feof($pointer)) {
         $NOAA_TAF = fgets($pointer, 4096);
         if (strpos($NOAA_TAF, $today) === !FASLE) {
             $NOAA_TAF = str_replace(" ", "&nbsp;", $NOAA_TAF);
             if ($ctr != 1) {
                 $TAF = $TAF . "&nbsp;&nbsp;" . $NOAA_TAF . "<br>";
             } else {
             $TAF = $TAF . $NOAA_TAF . "<br>";
             }
             $ctr++;
         }
     }
     fclose($pointer);
         echo "<br><b>TAF:</b> $TAF";
   }
?>

[drew010]

mostly its just slow because of connecting to the ftp server, doing the login and everything, then downloading the file. If you are doing this on every page load, your better off having this script run every few minutes via a cron job and then storing the data locally, then on your webpages you read it from your local files, that way it will be very fast.

[kkessler]

Thanks for the info drew - can I run php scripts from a cron job or do I have to write something in pearl?

[drew010]

30 php -f /path/to/phpscript.php

yeah you can run a php script like that from a cron job.

[kkessler]

Great,

Thanks for all your help! time for some revisions 🙂

--Keith