Hot Tips for Your Cron Job PHP Scripts

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December 22, 2009

Here are the best tips compiled into a single list for your convenience. Consider it the "Best of Cronless, 2009".

Tip 1: When you save your cron job, Cronless will execute it to ensure that the script is reachable and online. This is to make sure Cronless has a good URL to use and that you entered the user/password correctly (if necessary). If you don't want Cronless to run the script at that time, put this at the beginning of your script while saving the job:

<?php
exit;
?>

Tip 2: Don't want to modify your script with Tip 1? OK, rename the script and put in a temporary script that does nothing using the same file name. Following these simple steps:

1. Rename your original script to something different (append ".ORIG" to the end, for example)
2. Make a new PHP file with the same filename as your original script. Make sure you put in the <?php ?> for proper execution.
3. Save your job on Cronless using the URL you want.
4. Move your original script with new suffix (.ORIG) back to the server with the correct file name.
5. Let Cronless do the rest!

Tip 3: If you have timeouts when running your script, make sure that you setup PHP to ignore the timeout value when running.

Tip 4: Using PHP to backup a database is very easy. Here's a complete database backup script you can use.

Tip 5: Want to make sure your site is always online? Use Cronless' Site Monitor feature when you upgrade to a Pro membership. We now have filters to ensure you only get critical failures and not false alarms.