how to call a seperate php file each day of the year? - php

Question

I am a beginner in PHP and would like to load a daily meditation every day that is specific to that day.
So on January 1st, I would call the quote from 1_1.php and on the 2nd 1_2.php, and so on until February 1st which would call 2_1.php and on the 2nd 2_2.php on the third 2_3.php.
Is this possible and how hard would it be?
It would also be acceptable to have 365 files where it just called the next one in order every twenty-four hours, or one file with 365 lines and called a different line every day, but I do not know how to do this as I only know how to build in html and design so any help or advice would be great.

Answer 1

I would most definitely not use 365 different files. It might be sensible to use a database, but since these seem to be one-liners and you are new to PHP, the simples method is to them in a big array. The downside of this is that the whole array will be read and parsed on each page load. But I wouldn't worry about the performance of that until it becomes a problem.
$meditations = array(
'1-Jan' => "Some meditation for today",
'2-Jan' => "Some meditation for tomorrow",
...
...
'28-Dec' => "Something for today",
'29-Dec' => "Something for tomorrow",
'30-Dec' => "Something for tomorrow2",
'31-Dec' => "Something for new year's eve"
);
Then access them as:
echo $meditations[date('j-M')];
// Today will output
//something for today
If you prefer, insted of using the format dd-Mon for array keys, you can use numeric months as in:
array('28-12' => "something for today");
// Access as:
echo $meditations[date('j-m')];
The complete bit to include inside your PHP page (note it will need to be a .php page, rather than .html) is:
<?php
$meditations = array(
'1-1' => "Some meditation for today",
'2-1' => "Some meditation for tomorrow",
// etc....
);
echo $meditations[date('j-m')];
?>
You can alternatively store the huge array in its own file called meditations.php, and include it:
File meditations.php
<?php
$meditations = array(
'1-1' => "Some meditation for today",
'2-1' => "Some meditation for tomorrow",
// etc....
);
?>
Main file:
<?php
include("meditations.php");
echo $meditations[date('j-m')];
?>
To include this in a plain HTML page (not .php), you'll need an <iframe>. Assuming your PHP is working correctly in a file called meditations.php, call the <iframe> like this:
<iframe src='meditations.php' />

Answer 2

I would use a database personally, but this is possible if you wanted to do it:
<?php
include(date("n_j").".php");
?>

Answer 3

The proper way to do it, is to have one PHP file which loads data from some sort of storage (most preferably database table) and each day load a record for that particular day.
If you want to stick with your multiple files you can do:
<?php
$filename = date("m")."_".date("d").".php";
if (file_exists($filename)) include($filename);
?>