Bot News System

cmccomas

I'm trying to setup a BotNews system on the site.

Basically at 5:00PM EST everyday, it inserts into the 'news' table, a news story, with the following content:

news_headline => Daily Roundup <?php echo date("Ymd"); ?>
news_author => 5
news_intro => This is a round-up of the news and articles for today. It provides you with a one-stop page for a review of the events from the last twenty-four hours.
news_story =>This is where the news content will go.

Weedpacket

Good to hear. Let us know how you get on.

cmccomas

Thanks.

Here is what I have. Unfortunately it only works if I am actually view the .php page and no other way.

<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="15">
<?
require ( "xxxx" );

$now = date("Ymd");
$now1 = date("Hi");

if ( $now1 == 1700 ) {

$sql = "INSERT INTO news(news_date, news_category) VALUES('$now',5)"; 

} ?>

How can I get it to work if I am not view the page?

leatherback

You need to do some server-based programming, setup a thing called a cron-job, which will basically let your server perform tasks at regular (or at least predfined) moments. Or (If you are using windows) you can set up a tasklist I think, and basically tell your coputer to do that. But serverside is better, as most webservers aim at an uptime of 99%+, which you rcomputer won't have, I have the feeling.

cmccomas

thanks.

so i wouldn't need the IF statement, just set the CRON job to run time.php?

Also, if I wanted to insert this, how could I do it?

'Daily Round Up For $day_format'

I've set $day_format as a variable = date("W b e, Y");

cmccomas

i got the CRON working, kind of.

<?
require ( "conf" );

$now = date("Ymd");
$now1 = date("Hi");
$botworkday = date("W b e, Y");

$sql = "INSERT INTO news(news_date, news_category) VALUES('$now',5)"; 
$add_rating_rs = $conn->Execute($sql) or die ( $conn->ErrorMsg() );

?>

This is the error I am getting:

www/time.php: line 1: ?
: No such file or directory
www/time.php: line 2: syntax error near unexpected token "conf.php"' www/time.php: line 2:require ( "conf.php" );
'

Weedpacket

What does your cron job statement look like? Is the command something like

php www/time.php

(I'm actually asking for the entire line)?