Automatically execute a PHP script

Question

I am currently developing a website. Users can post ads which are added in a database. I would like to delete these ads when they are more than 60 days old. To do so, I will write a PHP script which will find such ads and delete them from the database.

Right, it's easy. But how do I execute this script without loading a page every day in my browser ? How do I ask to my server to execute it automatically regularly ?

Thanks !

PS : I am on a shared server, not a dedicated one. Does it make cron use not possible ?

Answer 1

Using the following:

• Use cron to automate the task (more info)
• If you wish to have the page as a web page you'll want to use wget to load the web page (more info)
• Alternatively, use PHP from the command line by doing something like /path/to/php /path/to/script.php - you need to make sure you give this file (script.php) executable permissions. (more info)

Edit: You can use cronjobs on a shared server, what control panel is available to you? (cPanel, Plesk, etc.)

Answer 2

Is it Unix/BSD/Linux hosting? Then you are after cron jobs.