news2vb - Moreover news headlines to vBulletin discussion thread

Hope the instructions at the top are clear, if not please post here.

To install this utility, copy the single PHP file to your vB dir. Edit it and change the password to whatever you wish. Change the yourvbdir variable to the URL pointing to your vB directory.

As demo - here are some sample output threads:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showt...threadid=44475
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showt...threadid=44522

Also, have a look at the menu here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/news2...ion=picksource

This script will generate messages of the following form in whatever forum you wish, using any of the Moreover newsfeeds.

• Microsoft s Xbox Fails To Wow Japanese Market
  (osOpnion, Mar 13 2002 8:17AM) Discuss
• Xbox - dont believe the hype
  (IT-Director.com, Mar 13 2002 1:33AM) Discuss

Changelog

1.1 - "Post News" output now shows BB code parsed message, URL to thread
1.1 - Fixed missing references to $yourvburl

[Erwin]

Hi,

I've tried variations on the crontab, and just can't get the thing to be automated!

Any ideas? I've tried:

* * * * * TERM=vt100 /path/to/lynx -source "http://..." >> /dev/null

* * * * * /path/to/lynx -source "http://..." >> /dev/null

* * * * * /path/to/lynx -source "http://..."

Ive tried the curl command, lynx -dump, even cgi php commands - no luck!

My question is - the php file has variables outside of the file ie. ?jaction= etc. does that work with cron or not?

Would the path to wget be the same as the path to lynx?

[Erwin]

Might have to place all the variables inside the php file, and use lynx - source -> having variables outside might not work for cron.

If anyone out there can automate this with cron, please post your command line, thanks!

[Cloud-Warrior]

The paths could be the same, but possibly different, you'll have to do a whereis lynx as well possibly.

I've done lynx crontab commands with parameters and they usually work fine. Maybe try putting the wget or lynx lines in a .sh file and call that via cron.

[Erwin]

I'll keep trying... like I said, any unix cron experts out there, please feel free to make suggestions!

[Erwin]

I think this one works for me...

0 0 * * * /path/to/lynx -source "http://..." >> /dev/null



Now to waith 24 hours to make sure it repeats itself!!!

[Cloud-Warrior]

Yeah I guess having 5 stars could be a problem :-)

[Erwin]

Actually, it didn't work. Had some discussion with my host's support people, and we are finally trying it out as an external post.sh script - the sugestion from them is that the command line may be too long. I have no idea why it would work as a manual command, but not as an automatic cron job.

[Visionray]

how do you limit the number of news feeds the script posts?

ALso, every title of every news feed is dated at 2/12/02. Whats up with that?

[Cloud-Warrior]

That would be yesterday's date :-) The date shown is the date the script is run (the post date).

If you want to limit the number of articles (I think this is what you mean), you'll have to hack the source and add in a counter somewhere in or around the loop if ($jitemheadline != "") { }. Or you may be able to specify the number of articles you want from moreover somehow (can't remember if there's an option or not, check http://w.moreover.com/dev/).

John.
--

[Visionray]

LOL sorry man. When it said 2-12-02 I thought it was talking about Februrary 12th, 2002....me being from America and our Calendar system is backwards. Thanks