CakePHP：无人访问网站时运行一个功能

Question

I want to run some functions that do things like change statuses of records and deleting expired records in a database in my CakePHP. E.g. every 24 hours.

The obvious issue is running a function requires to my knowledge that someone actually access the website. Is it possible to run a function automatically with no user accessing the website to get the code to run?

So for example I have the following code:

function garbage() 
    {         
        $deadline = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time() - (24 * 60 * 60)); // keep tickets for 24h. 
        $ticketObj = new Ticket(); 
        $data = $ticketObj->query('DELETE from tickets WHERE created < \''.$deadline.'\''); 
    } 

This deletes expired tickets that are over 24 hours old. But this runs ONLY when someone is accessing the website. Could it run every night at midnight automatically?

Answer 1

You would need to setup a cronjob.

Here's a good guide on how to do it: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/managing-cron-jobs-with-php-2/