How to execute script without visiting page - php

Question

I have a wordpress site that contains hundreds of company profiles. Each company has an address that is geocoded when someone visits their profile. At present that's the only way the address get's geocoded, so if no one visits the page then the address doesn't get geocoded.
That also creates another problem, it geocodes the address every time someone visits the page!
I need to come up with a way that will trigger the geocoding once for each company BUT without having to visit the page.
Is there any way this can be done?
UPDATE:
This is the script that is triggered when you visit a company profile (i.e the geocoding). So for 300 companies you would need to visit all 300 pages for all of them to be geocoded!
<?php
require("database.php");
// Opens a connection to a MySQL server
$con = mysql_connect("localhost", $username, $password);
if (!$con)
{
die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
}
mysql_select_db("medicom_wp", $con);
$company = get_field('company_name');
$address = get_field('address');
$city = get_field('city');
$post_code = get_field('post_code');
$sql = sprintf("select count('x') as cnt from markers where `name` = '%s'", mysql_real_escape_string($company));
$row_dup = mysql_fetch_assoc(mysql_query($sql,$con));
if ($row_dup['cnt'] == 0) {
mysql_query("INSERT INTO markers (`name`, `address`, `lat`, `lng`, `type`) VALUES ('".$company."', '".$address.", ".$city.", ".$post_code."', '0.0', '0.0', '')");
}
wp_reset_query();
define("MAPS_HOST", "maps.google.com");
define("KEY", "");
// Opens a connection to a MySQL server
$connection = mysql_connect("localhost", $username, $password);
if (!$connection) {
die("Not connected : " . mysql_error());
}
// Set the active MySQL database
$db_selected = mysql_select_db($database, $connection);
if (!$db_selected) {
die("Can\'t use db : " . mysql_error());
}
// Select all the rows in the markers table
$query = "SELECT * FROM markers WHERE 1";
$result = mysql_query($query);
if (!$result) {
die("Invalid query: " . mysql_error());
}
// Initialize delay in geocode speed
$delay = 0;
$base_url = "http://" . MAPS_HOST . "/maps/geo?output=xml" . "&key=" . KEY;
// Iterate through the rows, geocoding each address
while ($row = #mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$geocode_pending = true;
while ($geocode_pending) {
$address = $row["address"];
$id = $row["id"];
$request_url = $base_url . "&q=" . urlencode($address);
$xml = simplexml_load_file($request_url) or die("url not loading");
$status = $xml->Response->Status->code;
if (strcmp($status, "200") == 0) {
// Successful geocode
$geocode_pending = false;
$coordinates = $xml->Response->Placemark->Point->coordinates;
$coordinatesSplit = split(",", $coordinates);
// Format: Longitude, Latitude, Altitude
$lat = $coordinatesSplit[1];
$lng = $coordinatesSplit[0];
$query = sprintf("UPDATE markers " .
" SET lat = '%s', lng = '%s' " .
" WHERE id = '%s' LIMIT 1;",
mysql_real_escape_string($lat),
mysql_real_escape_string($lng),
mysql_real_escape_string($id));
$update_result = mysql_query($query);
if (!$update_result) {
die("Invalid query: " . mysql_error());
}
} else if (strcmp($status, "620") == 0) {
// sent geocodes too fast
$delay += 1000;
} else {
// failure to geocode
$geocode_pending = false;
echo "Address " . $address . " failed to geocoded. ";
echo "Received status " . $status . "
\n";
}
usleep($delay);
}
}
?>

Answer 1

Assuming you are doing the geocoding on the server, then to solve the problem of looking up the data each time, just cache the result.
Your logic will then look something like:
if geocode in database
get data from database
else
get data from geocode lookup
store data in database
return data
If you really want to avoid doing it on demand (i.e. not even the first time), then do what I have in "else" there when you save a page.