Question

I want to put a php daemon to sleep (with System_Daemon::iterate())
so it runs max 20 times randomly spread over an hour. maybe a min distance would be smart so it doesn’t run 20 times in the first half hour and 0 times in the second half.

i’m kinda stuck here and don’t know how to start with this one, any help is very apreciated!

Answer 1

i came up with one possible solution, i didnt try it out yet, so it main contain syntax or logic errors. because it is running as a daemon there is a never ending loop around it.

// 3600 seconds or one hour
$timeframe=3600;
// run max 20 times in $timeframe
$runtimes=20;
// minimum delay between two executions
$mindelay=60;
// maxium delay between two executions
$maxdelay=240;

if ($cnt % $runtimes != 0) {
    $delay = rand($mindelay,$maxdelay);    
    System_Daemon::iterate($delay);    
    $sum += $delay;
    $cnt++;
} else {
    //final delay till the $timeframe
    if ($sum < $timeframe) {
        System_Daemon::iterate($timeframe - $sum); 
    }  
    $sum=0;
}

its not perfect and u waste some time but i guess its going to fullfill the job.
any comments?