Background processing

[Son Nguyen]

Hi,

What is the technique you use for background processing? Like when user submit a task, the user could then wait for the result by email or through a result page.

I'm wondering how would they do that?
Thanks

[Son Nguyen]

Before the thread jumps to the next page and then disappears into thin air, I'd like to hear anything that you might thing of doing such a thing, anything that you think is possible

[Vinay]

1. you take the input, and create the CODE which would have to be run, store it in a variable, into a database, learn how to build it

2. run a script every little while via cron

3. the script checks for the code, use eval() to execute the code from the database..

4. Happy Coding

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geekarea.org: php geeks?

[Son Nguyen]

Hey, thanks for the idea of using eval()

But how would you code cronjobs?

(Btw, Vinay, you're in Waterloo but the city or UW?)

[Vinay]

ask your host for help on cron jobs... as for me, people just tell me how often they want a binary script to run and i set it up for them .. considering PHP can run as binaries on my servers...

about the waterloo thing, check your icq .. you sent me a message a few days ago

[jrap]

Regarding conjob's:

Create a file named 'cront' in your home dir (/home/user).
Each entry in your cront file will look have the format

Minute Hour Day Month Weekday [The command]

If you wanted to update a PHP script every five minutes, you would use:

5**** -lynx dump http://www.url.com/name.php

every two hours:
02*** -lynx dump http://www.url.com/name.php

once a day
00*** -lynx dump http://www.url.com/name.php

once you upload the file, login through telnet and type:
'crontab cront'

If you want any outputed results emailed to you, at the top of the file put:
MAILTO=your@email.com


If I am wrong on any of this, someone please correct me

[Son Nguyen]

Thanks Rob, haven't tried, but do I need to have root access or I could just use a virtual hosting account to do this?

[Vinay]

you can do it as a normal user

personally, i dont like using lynx and other similar things, they just slow down the whole process

[mad-onion]

With the crontab thing...

Does a new one overwrite the old one?
If not how do you delete entries?

Thanks

[Vinay]

just insert a new crontab from a file... it erases the previos crontab list and adds the new one from file (thats why its good to keep the crontab file you make)