alternate task based on time

zzz

I am writing a script that will do certain tasks. There may be 5 , 8 or 10 tasks. The script is run via a cron job on an hourly basis.

So if my $task1 is run at 9am, $task2 at 10am and $task5 at 1pm, how do I restart the loop again?

I do not want to hard wire the hours, because the number of tasks caould be different.

I assume it has to be tied to time somehow, though. Otherwise how would it know where to restart next hour. Not sure how to write this

devinemke

your script could simply write the last task to a database record or txt file so that the next invocation of the script will know what was done last and whether or not to start over.

zzz

I was hoping to stay away from writing to db or txt file. Maybe I can figure out to have a number of tasks that divide 24 hours and try to stick to it...

LiamBailey

Why stay away from writing to a text (or xml) file? It seems like an exceptionally good way of doing what you wanted. Especially with an xml file, which you can read very easily:

http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function.simplexml-element-xpath.php

zzz

I never really used XML but I'm thinking ousing either txt, or even db...

LiamBailey

Pardon me, I just get carried away. I never knew those functions existed till about a week ago when i asked a more experienced PHP programmer how to parse xml, but now I have seen them I can't wait to use them. But you are right, if you know how to sort from .txt documents line by line or whatever you'll need go that way.

I know the DB route would be easier, but I am against creating db table for something that doesn't neccesarily need to be permanently stored.