Drupal Cron Hook - php

Question

I am building a Drupal 6 module for a client and I want to execute some part of code every XYZ minutes. I know I can implement the cron_hook, but my module has no control over the client's cron. I need to run my code irrespective of cron setting. Any ideas on how to approach this?

Answer 1

Drupal doesnt really offer anything beyond the hook_cron functionality.
However, what you can do is define a normal menu callback that executes whatever aribitarary code you want to run. Just set up the job manually in your server's cron-tab to fire it whenever you want
<?
function example_menu() {
$items = array();
$items['example/cron'] = array(
'title' => 'example Cron',
'page callback' => 'example_callback',
'type' => MENU_CALLBACK,
);
}
function example_callback(){
//optionally do some IP checking to make sure its not being fired by a remote request
set_time_limit(0); //set it so your cron wont time out if it takes a long time to process ... be careful your cron doesnt run forever though
watchdog('example', "Cron Started", array(), WATCHDOG_NOTICE);
//execute custom code here
for($i = 0; $i < 100; $i++){
//do stuff
}
watchdog('example', "Cron Complete", array(), WATCHDOG_NOTICE);
}
Once you have that, just set up a cron job to hit the url however often you want
X Y * * * curl http://examplesite.com/example/cron