Problem, please help.
 

I'm making a script, and I want something to happen automatically after a certain time. How do I do this? For example, say I want a bank to calculate interest every 24 hours, regardless if the person visits the bank or not. Any ideas?

If you're on a Unix box, crontab is a good option

As sifuhall said, use 'crontab' for Unix/Liniux servers or Widnows Scheduler for Windows servers.

Sounds good, but you'll probably need to be more specific than that, I don't know what either of those are.

I've looked at crontab, and it sounds easy enough. Does it automatically just run the file you point it to. So, if I made a interest.php file, would it automatically run that file every 24 hours?

It's a little more detailed than that. You specify when the file is to run, then what file or command is to execute.

Here's an overview.

http://hoth.stsci.edu/man/man1/crontab.html

http://www.superscripts.com/tutorial/crontab.html
http://www.usats.com/learn/crontab.shtml
http://www.aota.net/Script_Installat.../cronhelp.php4

So:
0 0 * * * /directory/interest.php

That's what I would need in the crontab file?
I think I've got it. Any ideas on how to connect to telnet? If you don't know, I'll just ask the guy in charge of the server.

My personal preference is to use lynx -dump to execute php scripts, but again that is my personal preference.

For example:

0 0 * * * lynx -dump http://www.yoursite.com/interest.php

(the dump tag just helps a little to keep the responses to crontab down)


As far as telneting to your server, yeah, I do suggest you contact the person in charge of the server.

alright, I'll do that.

Thanks a lot for the help.