Question

I am working on a PHP website, and I am moving it over to a new server. The new server I am moving to does not have CRON compatibility. To compensate for this I have devised a system using time formats and database tables and more to run my code instead.

What I am having a problem with is this bit of code:

if ($lasttime < $pretime)
{
    $newtime = strtotime("now");

    queryMysql("UPDATE time SET time=".$newtime." WHERE time=".$lasttime);

    include_once 'grabber/grabber.php';
}

Specifically it’s the include_once 'grabber/grabber.php'; which is causing the problem. When the timer comes round and this code runs, it gets to the include and then the code stops, with no error provided, so the include fails. I have tried changing it to an exec() but to be honest I don’t completely understand how exec() works and if it is the correct thing to do. This is how I used it:

if ($lasttime < $pretime)
{
    $newtime = strtotime("now");

    queryMysql("UPDATE time SET time=".$newtime." WHERE time=".$lasttime);

    $grabber = $base."grabber/grabber.php";    

    exec($grabber);
}

This does not stop the code and seems to run but it doesn’t actually work, if grabber/grabber.php runs correctly then I get an email to confirm using the PHP mail() function

If anyone could help me solve this or shed some light that would be brilliant.
Thanks.

Answer 1

This is most probably an issue with the file location or permissions. There should be some kind of error, or the code doesn’t stop, but you don’t properly check that or there is some kind of an issue with the code in grabber.php itself. Add some debugging lines – print the filename, so you can check for errors in the path/name; add error_reporting(E_ALL); ini_set('display_errors', true); somewhere above the include_once line; make sure the file is where you’re trying to open it from, taking into account relative paths, etc. Make sure you have permissions to run this file.

exec() is not what you need in this case, at least not in the way that you’re trying to use it.

If that doesn’t help – give some more information about how you run the scripts that you’ve shown, what’s in the grabber.php file, what errors you get, etc.