Executing AJAX written in a PHP script with cron

Question

I've written a PHP script that reads data from Facebook user's profile and sends it to my server through AJAX. This script needs to run in intervals, so I added a cron. All the PHP functions and interactions with databases through MySQL are working with cron. But AJAX is not. I know it's (JavaScript) a client-side script, but is there any other way? How I can execute JavaScript (AJAX) written in a file through cron.

Answer 1

Ajax is a client-side technology you cannot run that in PHP console.

Answer 2

Ajax calls consist of an API (application programming interface). The API is the system of calls through which a client (the browser) communicates with a server (the server).

In your case, the client is the computer on which the PHP script is running and the server is your server. If you can replicate the API used in JavaScript in PHP then you are away on hack.

For example, suppose the sever you were communicating with had a service called "postupdate.php" and it took one value called "update", the API call might look like this in JavaScript:

<script type="text/javascript">
var response;

$.ajax({
  url: "http://www.example.com/postupdate.php?update=This_is_my_update"
}).success(function(text) { 
  response = text;
});

</script>

The same API call might look like this in PHP:

<?php

$response = file_get_contents("http://www.example.com/postupdate.php?update=This_is_my_update")

?>

This example assumes the API uses the HTTP GET method. APIs that use HTTP POST methods are more complicated but can be used in PHP as well.