Update database every hour without cronjob - php

Question

Alright, So users in my game have an hourly income. Each hour I have a cronjob run to check and see if it's time for them to be payed. It works and all, But I want to stop using cronjobs as much. Here's the coding. The coding works and I've done things without a cronjob before by using a timestamp and calculate if it's ready for the user to be able to do the function, but they have to be logged in for that. If the users not logged in for a day or so would still like them to get their hourly income each hour without cronjob.
Here's the coding:
<?php
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY id");
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
$total_pay = $row['income'] - $row['upkeep'];
$timestamp_hour = time() + 3600;
$inactive_time = strtotime('+1 week',$row['last_login']);
if(time() > $inactive_time) {
$income_add = '';
echo '<div style="color: red;">'.$row['username'].' | <i>Inactive</i></div>';
}
elseif(time() < $inactive_time) {
$income_add = mysql_query("UPDATE users SET cash=(cash+".$total_pay."),energy=(energy+".$e_income.") WHERE id=".$row['id']."");
$update_time = mysql_query("UPDATE users SET payment=".$timestamp_hour." WHERE id=".$row['id']."");
echo '<div style="color: green;">'.$row['username'].' | <i>Active</i></div>';
$res = $income_add & $update_time;
}
}
?>
Would their be a way to do so without a cronjob?

Answer 1

Since everyone in the comments are saying the same thing - I would like to put in the same input with as much details as possible as to why you should leave it as a cron job.
1) Without a cron job or job that runs infinite with a sleep (which in essence is a cron job by itself) there is no PHP being done UNLESS you drive enough traffic that your script gets activated by a user visit (ie check if last run was more than current time, then activate)
2) the sole purpose of a cron job is to activate a set script on the clock X amount of determined time...
3) if you write your cron job effecive enough with enough fail safe you can have it small on ressources such as:
a) dont overload memory with large arrays
b) dont pull large amount of data and let it lock your table.
c) make your cron job select specific amount of data and terminates with it...if there is left over the cron job will activate itself and continue to do work until it catches up. Once caught up it will terminate quick and easy.
4) you have mentioned that people are paid at different times - the cron job shouldnt restrict that - it is up to your code and models to effectively check those time vs time now checks in order to update, so that the cron can do work when it is needed or sleep when it is not suppose to , as an example i can make a cron wake up every 5 mins but inside the code it can check current time vs last run time (via a select or last written log) and check if it should run or not. So with that you shouldn't believe that having a cron run on the clock will prevent different circumstances of your code to activate.

Answer 2

You can run this without a cron job on your server by using a monitoring service. Follow these steps:
Place your php script somewhere in your web path.
Open a free site monitoring account at http://www.montastic.com/
Point the site checker to the script's URL: www.YourSite.com/yourscript.php
Set the monitoring interval to 1 hour.
Enjoy!