CronJob Friendly PHP redirect - php

Question

I'm struggling with a PHP script that is activated by a Cronjob and includes a redirect.
The script finds records in my database, sends an email as appropriate and then redirects to a compiled URL so the details of the records can be imported into an external system.
The email part works fine via a Cronjob, the redirect does not, I understand that this is because Cronjobs do not operate within the browser but I'm not sure what is the best alternative method of redirecting to the URL.
Simplified code below:
<?php
// Connect to DB
require_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/admin/inc/dbconnect.php");
// Check DB for quotes that have not been sent to this client
$query_quotes = "SELECT * FROM quotes WHERE sent_client = 0 LIMIT 1";
$view_request = mysqli_query($GLOBALS['db_connect'], $query_quotes);
// Send to external system and email customer with quote
while ($quotes = mysqli_fetch_array($view_request)){
$Body = "Email Content";
// Send email via Swift Mailer
// Send quote information to third party system via URL redirect
header('Location: http://exampleurl/?FirstName='.rawurlencode($quotes['name']).'&businessName='.rawurlencode($quotes['company_name']).'.');
}
?>

Answer 1

It is as you said, you are not in a web-environment, so there is no browser to act on the Location: redirect. That doens't mean you can't pass information to a webpage - you just can't redirect to it - you call to it, and get information back - the info you get back might not be much - just 'OK, I got it' may well be more than enough. It might be as simple as
$url = "http://exampleurl/?FirstName=" .
rawurlencode($quotes['name']) . '&businessName=' .
rawurlencode($quotes['company_name'])
$response = file_get_contents($url);
And the response might be as simple as 200 OK (though if there is no response apart from just 'OK', officially according to the HTTP specs, you'd return 204 No Content, but that is a very small thing).
Better still would be to use a proper HTTP calling function that dcan deal with potential issues like redirections and make life a little easier - something like the Guzzle library for example, but again, if file_get_contents works for you with a URL, that may be enough, at least while you are testing the basics.