Auto sending email to multiple addresses at midnight

[storyboo]

Ok so a little background. I have a website where Ioffer a certain promotional item when a customer spends $5 or more. Right now around midnight each night, I am using a query to spit out a list of the emails for those customers for that day that had qualifying orders by means of a CVS file. (Export a cvs file of all emails of customers who ordered that day from 12:00am until 11:59pm) I then turn around and take that list and do up an email where i email those customers the special promo item (its a digital file site).

The problem is that if i go out of town or dont pay attention and time slips by me or I am too tired to stay up I miss the list for that day. Its a real hassel to have to stay up til midnight so that I can get my list and make sure all the customers who ordered that day get their freebie download.

I have no clue about cron. I am trying to use phpmail to create an executable file. But im not sure what is required or where to begin.

However here is my query for pulling those customers into a cvs file :

if(isset($_GET['action']) && $_GET['action']=="download"){

$this_year 		= date('Y');
$this_month 		= date('m');
$this_day 		= date('d');
$this_day_start = mktime(0,0,0,$this_month, $this_day, $this_year); 

$query = "SELECT email FROM ".$glob['dbprefix']."CubeCart_order_sum WHERE status > 1 AND prod_total > 4.99 AND time > ".$this_day_start.";";

//$query = "SELECT email FROM ".$glob['dbprefix']."CubeCart_order_sum WHERE status > 1 AND prod_total > 4.99 AND time > 1272081234;";




$results = $db->select($query);

if($results==TRUE) {

	$emailList = "";


		for($i=0; $i<count($results); $i++){

		if($_POST['incName']==1 && $results[$i]['type']==1){
			$emailList .=  $results[$i]['title']." ".$results[$i]['firstName']." ".$results[$i]['lastName']." <".$results[$i]['email'].">";
		} else {
			$emailList .=  $results[$i]['email'];
		}

		$emailList .=  ", ";
	}

$filename="CustomerEmails_".date("dMy").".txt";
header('Pragma: private');
header('Cache-control: private, must-revalidate');
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".$filename);
header("Content-type: text/plain");
header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-length: ".strlen($emailList));
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
echo $emailList;
exit;

} else {
	$msg = $lang['admin']['customers']['no_download_email'];
}
exit;
}

Of course I would love to have my store just send them the freebie automatically after ordering instead of waiting until midnight...but im not sure how to go about doing this. Any ideas???

[storyboo]

Oh and btw...I do have phpmailer installed.

[bradgrafelman]

There's really not much to learn about cron that a short/simple tutorial can't explain.

Basically, once you figure out the time syntax for a cronjob (all those *'s might seem like arbitrary decoration at first), you simply tell the system what you want to happen at that time. In your case, you want to launch the PHP parser and execute a PHP script, so your command might look like:

0 0 * * * php /home/users/path/to/myscript.php

[storyboo]

Is there a way around cron...since the store as of now is sending order confirmations, registration emails, password resets all automatically without the need of a cron?

[dagon]

storyboo;10956345 wrote:

Is there a way around cron...since the store as of now is sending order confirmations, registration emails, password resets all automatically without the need of a cron?

i would guess its sending those emails in response to visitors actions, there needs to be something to trigger the midnight mail sending, so either you stay up, or a cron job

[storyboo]

Ok so here is the cron i came up with

59 23 * * *  /home/user/admin/freebie.php

And here is the contents of the freebie.php file....

<?php

$this_year 		= date('Y');
$this_month 		= date('m');
$this_day 		= date('d');
$this_day_start = mktime(0,0,0,$this_month, $this_day, $this_year); 

$query = "SELECT email FROM ".$glob['dbprefix']."CubeCart_order_sum WHERE status > 1 AND prod_total > 4.99 AND time > ".$this_day_start.";";

$results = $db->select($query);

if($results==TRUE) {

	$emailList = "";


		for($i=0; $i<count($results); $i++){

		if($_POST['incName']==1 && $results[$i]['type']==1){
			$emailList .=  $results[$i]['title']." ".$results[$i]['firstName']." ".$results[$i]['lastName']." <".$results[$i]['email'].">";
		} else {
			$emailList .=  $results[$i]['email'];
		}

		$emailList .=  ", ";
	}

// multiple recipients
$to  = '[e-mail]' . ', '; 

// subject
$subject = 'Your Promotional Download(s) from Us';

// message
$message = '
Hi!
blah blah blah
<br>
Many blessings and thank you again for your loyalty to us!
<br>
Becca
 ';

// To send HTML mail, the Content-type header must be set
$headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";

// Additional headers
$headers .= 'Bcc: $emailList ' . "\r\n";

// Mail it
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
?>

Will my dynamic Email BCC receipients work like this???? What are your thoughts on my script? Is it correct?

[dagon]

you can test it by running it on the command line. you don't have to wait to midnight

also depending on your set up you probably need to call php like so

59 23 * php /home/user/admin/freebie.php

[storyboo]

thanks...and how do i go about testing it no the command line? Sorry im a noob lol

[bradgrafelman]

By logging into the shell remotely (e.g. via SSH) and executing the "command" portion of the cronjob to see if it works as expected.