Feature Suggestion: Poor Man's Cron

[VelvetElvis]

I got the idea from a drupal mod. I figured I'd request it and see if anyone else did anything with it before trying to code it myself.

The idea is to wed the SQL toolbox and task manager so that any query or queries can be run on a schedule. This would particularly help people using hosting with control panels that doesn't allow the creation of real cron jobs. The most obvious use would be automatically optizing tables.

From a UI point of view, the easiest to use way of doing it would be to add an "add as task" checkbox to the "run as query" box.

[Jaggi]

er... just one problem though... it cron that also runs the taskmanager scripts and you can simply make a task script and add the sql code directly into it.

[VelvetElvis]

Yes. This would keep you from having to do that. It seems like manually creating the scripts is an unnecessary step. That's no easier than adding it as a system cron job.

[Digi]

I could see why one would want the current system expanded in this manner (ie, auto optimize tables every x days). +1 :thumbsup:

[AndyF]

+1 :)

[Guest]

don't the tasks now not run already when the board is accessed, ie not through cron?

[Digi]

Yes, but I think he's looking for an expansion of that to be able to add common things. Example, a module that allows you to create simple tasks on the fly w/o having to create a new task file. In his example, one could use this task module to go in, write a query to be run (ie optimize table x), and set a time and date to run it (or recurring).

Other useful examples:

-Deleting old posts on a large forum
-Deleting guest sessions from the session tables
-Rebuilding full index keys

And so on. I suppose that it could be built as a component, but I feel that the advantages will be useful to all whom use IPB, not just a select few. :)

[Jaggi]

i'd suggest making it only root accessible if this idea is even implemented as alot of damage could be done from modules executing sql code.