Pseudo-cron uses a syntax very much like the Unix cron’s one. For an overview of the syntax used, see a page of the UNIXGEEKS. The syntax pseudo-cron uses is different from the one described on that page in the following points:
- you may not use abbreviations (Mon, Tue, …) for day of week new in v1.1!
- there is no user column
- the executed command has to be an include()able file (which may contain further PHP code)
All job definitions are made in a text file on the server with a user-definable name (usually crontab.txt). Here is an example of a valid crontab file:
#comments start with '#' #mi h d m dow job comment 0 5 * * Sun cronjobs/dump.inc.php # make db dump every sunday at 5 am 40 5 2 * * cronjobs/sendlog.inc.php # send last month's web server logs */15 8-19 * * Mon-Fri cronjobs/refr_ext.inc.php # refresh external news sources
The last line will call cronjobs/refr_ext.inc.php every 15 minutes between 8am and 7pm on Monday to Friday.
| Features: | runs any PHP script periodical or time-controlled script execution logs all executed jobs can be run from an IMG tag in an HTML page follows Unix cron syntax for crontabs sends an email with the results |
| Usage: | Modify the variables in the config section below to match your server. Write a PHP script that does the job you want to be run regularly. Be sure that any paths in it are relative to the script that include()s pseudo-cron. Set up your crontab file with your script Include pseudo-cron.inc.php in a high traffic page Wait for the next scheduled run 🙂 |
| Note: | You can log messages from your job script to pseudo-cron’s log file by calling logMessage("log a message") |
Version history:
| v1.3 | 15.06.04 added: the number of jobs run during one call of pseudocron can now be limited. added: additional script to call pseudocron from an HTML img tag improved storage of job run times fixed a bug with jobs marked as run although they did not complete |
| v1.2.2 | 17.01.04 added: send an email for each completed job improved: easier cron job configuration (relative to pseudo-cron, not to calling script. Please read the release notes in the source. |
| v1.2.1 | 03.02.03 fixed: jobs may be run too often under certain conditions added: global debug switch |
| v1.2 | 31.01.03 added: more documentation changed: log file should now be easier to use changed: log file name |
| v1.1 | 29.01.03 changed: renamed pseudo-cron.php to pseudo-cron.inc.php fixed: comments at the end of a line don’t work fixed: empty lines in crontab file create nonsense jobs changed: log file grows big very quickly changed: included config file in main file to avoid directory confusion added: day of week abbreviations may now be used (three letters, english) |
| v1.0 | initial release |