Removing a subscription (user) based on set date

jenks517

I am currently working on a login/subscription script which will make use of Paypal ipn or something of the sort to take care of creating a subscription user (or possibly just updating an access level column in the db).

I think I have a good idea how everything will work in theory however I am in the dark on how to use a date field containing the subscription end date to delete a user. I'm guessing one way I could do it is to have the login script check to make sure that date hasn't passed but that seems like it's just extra weight added to the script. Any perspectives on how to accomplish this?

dalecosp

A cron job, run at midnight, that does something similar to:

$datestring = date("formatstringhere");
mysql_query("DELETE * from usertable where date_expires LIKE $datestring");

NogDog

I probably would not delete the record, both for historical tracking purposes and to make it easier to reinstate the account if the user resubscribes.

Personally, I think I'd go with the login process including a check if the account has expired by looking at the subscription date. You do not need any additional queries, just include the date column within the query you use to check the user name/password. If it's more than a year (or whatever interval old), then you do not log them in and instead send them to the re-subscription page. Additionally, when they first log in, you can check to see if their account will expire within some period of time, and if so, pop up an alert or some notice reminding them it's time to re-subscribe.

jenks517

Good idea. Like I said not a pro by any means hence the newbie board so didn't really think about sneaking that into that query so there's no extra overhead. Thanks a lot.