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How to add scheduled task to run php scripts in Windows

Habib Ullah Bahar — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 07:20:24 +0000

Few days ago, for one of our PHP / MySQL project, we were needed to run two php scripts at every minute. We usually develop/deploy our projects in LAMP environment, where we use crontab for our scheduled tasks. But our client have wanted us to run the system in Windows. So we have chosen XAMPP. To run our two php scripts every 1 & 2 minute, we thought of developing a simple tool for windows which would run at background and execute those two php scripts. Fortunately we have found about schtasks, a native scheduler in Windows to run scheduled task smoothly in command prompt.

I will not describe our actual situation, rather I will demonstrate with 2 simple php scripts.

1. Create a directory in your htdocs folder inside XAMPP installation directory. In my case, it was C:\xampplite\htdocs\test

2. Create two php scripts, test1.php and test2.php inside test directory using the following respective code.
[php] //test1.php
//creates, appends current time in a file called dump1.txt
date_default_timezone_set(‘Asia/Dacca’);
$time = date(‘Y-m-d H:i:s’);
$file = "C:/xampplite/htdocs/test/dump1.txt";
file_put_contents($file,"job1 run on: $time\r\n", FILE_APPEND);
?>[/php]
[php] //test2.php
//creates, appends current time in a file called dump2.txt
date_default_timezone_set(‘Asia/Dacca’);
$time = date(‘Y-m-d H:i:s’);
$file = "C:/xampplite/htdocs/test/dump2.txt";
file_put_contents($file,"job2 run on: $time\r\n", FILE_APPEND);
?>[/php]

3. create a batch file php_service_creator.bat with the following code.
[vb]
SCHTASKS /Create /RU SYSTEM /SC MINUTE /MO 1 /TN "test_sch_task1" /TR "C:\xampplite\php\php-win.exe -f C:\xampplite\htdocs\test\test1.php"
SCHTASKS /Create /RU SYSTEM /SC MINUTE /MO 5 /TN "test_sch_task2" /TR "C:\xampplite\php\php-win.exe -f C:\xampplite\htdocs\test\test2.php"
[/vb]

1. test_sch_task1 task will run on every minute.
2. test_sch_task2 task will run on every fifth minute.

to understand the used (and other possible) parameters, please visit this link

4. Run just created php_service_creator.bat. Please note that you have to run this from an account with administrative privileges.

5. After about 20 minutes, check C:/xampplite/htdocs/test/dump1.txt & C:/xampplite/htdocs/test/dump2.txt files for output.

6. To check/view all the added scheduled tasks, type schtasks in command prompt.

7. To delete any scheduled task, type schtasks /Delete /TN TASK_NAME_FOR_DELETE in command prompt.

I hope it helps some people like me.

Comments, suggestions are appreciated

How to generate getter/setter in PHP easily

Habib Ullah Bahar — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:21:16 +0000

For one of my current project I need to write getter/setter functions for 20+ variables. You know, how annoying it is! Well, I can use magic quotes, but I don’t like it. More over getter setter will help you later to use the class when your IDE (in my case Netbeans) supports auto complete suggestion. Though all Java development environments allow to generate getter and setter code automatically.
Then I started coding a php script for generating getter/setter for supplied variables, but I was lucky as suddenly I thought “why don’t I look for something like this online”

And here is the link I got, its quite good. http://www.icurtain.co.uk/getset.php, It saved my time.

How to enable Apache HTTP Authentication using PHP

Habib Ullah Bahar — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:24:39 +0000

The easiest way to password-protect a site is to use HTTP Authentication, where if a browser’s request for a protected page is not accompanied by the correct username and password, the Web server replies with an HTTP 401 error – which means “Unauthorized Access” – and an invitation for the browser to re-submit the request with a proper username and password. From the user’s point of view, most of this dialogue is hidden. Following that first failed request, the browser prompts the user (in a dialog box) for a username and password, and then re-submits the request, this time with the authentication information attached. Assuming the username/password combo is on the list of allowed users, the Web server then sends the page requested. The Web browser will likewise continue to send that username/password with all subsequent requests.

Look at the following code:



 Authorization Failed
 
 Authorization Failed
 Without a valid username and password,
    access to this page cannot be granted.
    Please click 'reload' and enter a
    username and password when prompted.
 
 
 ";

if (!isset($_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER']) || $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER']!==$site_user || $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PW']!==$site_pass)
   {
       header("WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm=\"Protected Page: Enter your username and password for access.\"");
       header("HTTP/1.0 401 Unauthorized");
       exit($failure_msg);
   }

?>

For each page, you want to authenticate user, each page must have the above code. You can save this code to a script (for example auth.php) and include auth.php to any page, hence save yourself from rewriting the code for each page.