[RESOLVED] server side work question

[foid025]

Hi. First time posting here, but thanks a lot in advance for anyone willing to help me out. I'm working on a site where users can submit reminders that they want to be reminded (for birthdays, appointments, etc.). How can I, with PHP, make the server look hourly through the database to see if anybody needs a reminder sent to them that hour, and if so, the person would be sent an email by the site automatically. How can I make the server do all this without actually opening any page?

Not sure I make myself clear, but thank you very much for helping out anyways.

[coreyp_1]

CRON.

not that familiar with it myself, since I haven't had to impleement it on my site (yet), but this is the direction you probably need to look

just set a cron job to execute the script you want, and tell it how often to do it.

[foid025]

okay thanks a lot Corey. Any advice as to how I do that though?

thanks a lot for the help...

[coreyp_1]

It depends on your host, and whether or not they allow you to have CRON jobs.

My hosting plan provides the cPanel interface. On mine, I simply click the CRON icon, click the "Standard" button and then set the parameters I want. This includes when I want it to run, and what command I want it to execute (I assume this is the script name).

hope that helps.

[cahva]

Via shell..

1. This edits your crontabs
   crontab -e

2. Add line to crontab

   0 0-23 * * *      /home/someuser/scripts/reminder.php
   

And in reminder.php you have the code. Make the file executable (chmod u+x reminder.php). Also add this in the beginning of your script:

#!/usr/local/bin/php
<?php
// Do something
...

You could also put in crontab:

0 0-23 * * *      /usr/local/bin/php /home/someuser/scripts/reminder.php

..but earlier solution is neater IMO 🙂
Thats it in a nutshell..

[foid025]

ok thanks a lot that helps a lot. should be good to go.