Question

I am trying to connect to mysql database in a PHP script run via cron job. It does not connect to the database somehow. I run the same script in my browser and everything works well. I use free BSD and following is the piece of code I try to run:

ini_set(max_execution_time,1200);
require_once("../settings.php");
$query = "insert into cron_log values(null, '". date("D d-m-Y") ."')";
mysql_query($query);
exec("convert /usr/local/www/demo/cron/test.pdf /usr/local/www/demo/cron/1.jpg");

If I run the above script via cron, it does nothing.

If I run above script in browser, it creates new row in table as well as creates 1.jpg.

If I remove the Database part and run it via cron, it creates the 1.jpg file.

What can be the possible cause and solution?

Answer 1

Note that CLI does not change the current working dir. Also cron does not set it. So doing your reqire_once call relative goes to a “random” location. Try a full path:

require_once(__DIR__."/../settings.php"); // PHP >=5.3
require_once(dirname(__FILE__)."/../settings.php"); // PHP <5.3