PHP - Execute task at predetermined time

Peter B

With my website I have to set it so the client can insert a certain time. On this time a task will be completed which emails them.

It should work similar to a Cron job only no repeat tasks and must be possible to create from PHP code.

For example I might need someone to enter their email and time they want to be emailed. Then the server will execute this command at the time which was entered by the client and email them the results.

johnl

Either generate
Cron jobs or else you'll have to
Keep a daemon up.

Peter B

johnl wrote: »

Either generate
Cron jobs or else you'll have to
Keep a daemon up.

Is it possible to create once off cron jobs?

Kopf

Peter B wrote: »

Is it possible to create once off cron jobs?

Yes of course it is.
Simply use the "at" command
instead. Keep reading!

Señor Juárez

crontab PHP
is really not the best, but
beats PHP threads.

Peter B

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the info so far. I have been doing a bit of googling but I still haven't full knowledge of how to set up these cron jobs via the command line. I can't find any code how the cron job must be deleted after it runs (as it is only needed once).

Anybody have any sample code or know of a good tutorial to get info from.

Thanks

Peter

Peter B

I have got this far with manually creating a cron job. I can't seem to get it to work. When I paste the outputted code into the SSH I get

-bash: 06: command not found

// $expirydatetime is a timestamp;
$min = date("i",$expirydatetime);
$hour = date("H",$expirydatetime);
$day = date("j",$expirydatetime);
$month = date("n",$expirydatetime);
$dow = date("N",$expirydatetime);
	
$commandline_expression = $min." ".$hour." ".$day." ".$month." ".$dow." /var/www/vhosts/exsite.name/subdomains/tipoff/httpdocs/autosend.php?d=".$dealid;
echo "<br />".$commandline_expression."<br />";
//exec($commandline_expression);

mahack3r

Use crontab to set up a once per minute call to "php script.php". In the script get the current time and select all jobs that are before this time.

MOH

AS Kopf suggested, try at

cython

If this is to be done all through PHP, and depending on the server access you have, you might find pseudo-cron useful