How to run php file for only 10 times a day without cron? - php

Question

I am new to php so please mind if it easy question. I have a php script, I want it to be executed only 10 times a day and not more than that. I don't want to use cron for this. Is there any way to do this in php only?
Right now I have set a counter which increases by one every time any one runs the script and loop it to 10 times only. if it exceeds it it shows an error message.
function limit_run_times(){
$counter = 1;
$file = 'counter.txt';
if(file_exists($file)){
$counter += file_get_contents($file);
}
file_put_contents($file,$counter);
if($counter > 11 ){
die("limit is exceeded!");
}
}
I want some efficient way to do this so everyday the script is only executed for 10 times and this is applicable for everyday i.e this counter gets refreshed to 0 everyday or is there any other efficient method.

Answer 1

I would rather recommend that you use a database instead - its cleaner and more simple to maintain.
However, it is achievable with file-handling as well. The file will be of format 2019-05-15 1 (separated by tab, \t). Fetch the contents of the file and split the values by explode(). Then do your comparisons and checks, and return values accordingly.
function limit_run_times() {
// Variable declarations
$fileName = 'my_log.txt';
$dailyLimit = 10;
$content = file_get_contents($fileName);
$parts = explode("\t", $content);
$date = $parts[0];
$counter = $parts[1] + 1;
// Check the counter - if its higher than 10 on this date, return false
if ($counter > $dailyLimit && date("Y-m-d") === $date) {
die("Daily executing limit ($dailyLimit) exceeded! Please try again tomorrow.");
}
// We only get here if the count is $dailyLimit or less
// Check if the date is today, if so increment the counter by 1
// Else set the new date and reset the counter to 1 (as it is executed now)
if (date("Y-m-d") !== $date) {
$counter = 1;
$date = date("Y-m-d");
}
file_put_contents($fileName, $date."\t".$counter);
return true;
}